my logical poetry (or my poetic logic)

my poetry is now wholly mine,
not for who it is for, not anymore.

and it becomes more his, more about him,
more not about myself.

and as i write more about him,
with words more mine,

he becomes more mine.

put that finger away; i tried to tell him then i was in love . . .

I drink with Ricky when I feel I'm most confident, not chemically induced, to add. He was just one of those smartasses whose big egos you'd just like to keep on adding air into until that one critical moment when the thinnest pin would do for a perfect prick. I cannot come unprepared; it is always a war around him. He would have the littlest annoyances. I understand how guys tend to make a big deal out of girls' toenails. Ugly nails are really a turnoff. My point was that I thought I didn't have to worry about my nails around my guy friends. "Be turned off all you want, MF! I wouldn't mind having ugly nails if it means keeping myself hump-free from you!" He allows me certain cuss words now. "No, really, even without the sexual clause, you should look after your nails." I looked at my nails then. I had to agree; they looked ugly. "Get over it. Just keep your eyes from my knees up."

After one bottle. "Some women cannot afford the look to reach your standards, you know," I told him. "What? Clean nails?" "Get over the nails already!" He smiled. He could get really picky with his women. Perhaps it was his only indulgence. He is a good person and has many opinions regarding how unfair the current system is for some of us. But this does not mean he would all-of-a-sudden go courting some nice girl from the slums. He likes them well dressed and all worked up to match the perfectly photographed ones in magazines. It's a man's world to him, and women could go and make themselves pretty all they want; the world has created heavier crimes than making its women beautiful. "I think if nails really should not matter that much, I would meet a girl who'd actually make me forget about them." This guy just could not get over things quick. I decided to join him further on with this topic he seems to be unable to let go of. "What do you think women before used for nail cutters?" I was really now starting to wonder. Of course, he, predictably, turns to me and gives me a look as if to say, "That's going too far back."

After the second bottle. "For all we know, God must have created Adam and Eve to see if they would end up killing each other." He laughed this time. By now he was already used to me being fond of God-thoughts. "Yeah. It's really a wonder, huh? Maybe they were not the first couple God made. The first ones could have killed each other. They only happen to be the first to actually learn about sex, which stopped them from cutting each other's head off." "And they say God hates the serpent." We were both amused and became silent for a long moment or two, each inside our respective Gardens of Eden.

The third bottle got opened. "I'm thinking of moving to a new place." He looked at me. If he was about to say something that would hint on an attempt to stop me, it didn't show on his face. As I've said, I only see him on a few occasions, and my moving to another place would not seem that big of a deal to him. By looking at the the number of times we get together, I could move to another city and still see him just the same, with the same frequency we currently have. "What's wrong with the place you have now?" I had to hold back a smile. Even if he understood clearly what I meant, he was making me feel as though the impossibility of what I intend to do just could not reach him. It was always like him to twist what I actually meant into something else, into what he thinks I intended to say, and he just has this way of making me end up going along with him until I become convinced that it was what I really meant to say to begin with. I meant a new city, not just a new place. But I still ended up saying, "It would be great to have a kitchen of my own." He nodded his head. He had me again.

The fourth bottle came, and I still wasn't even half drunk. "I'm running out of ideas for my book." I tried again. Even I cannot understand why I had to establish it with him that I was moving away. I could just send him a message one day that I'd be leaving in a couple of days and that I would like it if we get together with our friends for a despidida. I guess I'm a sucker for romance too. I'd like to know if he'd try to hold me back, or if he'd finally tell me some secret feelings that had been accumulating inside him--things like that. Don't get me wrong. I don't have a secret love for him or anything, or that I'm dreaming for us to one day realize we are actually in love with each other or something. I told you, this guy has some serious dose of megalomania in his blood. Those people, you wait for them to fall head-on just for the sake of seeing them tumble over. I have to say, though, that it never occurred to me as a problem just in case he actually does. There's a reason why I stayed friends with the conceited brat. Ricky could be a real charmer.

The fifth bottle found me starting to morph into a carrot. "You're starting to burn around the cheeks. Do you think you can still drink some more?" I told him I was fine. I just had too much sun over the previous weekend. "What happened to your hiatus from smoking?" I decided to go to another topic. I am an egoist too, and I considered him a break from myself. "I told you it was only going to be a short one," he answered me matter-of-factly. "I didn't think you'd last long without smoking either." I saw the look on his face and went for a quick follow-up to keep the tensions, his mostly, from rising. "I mean you really don't have any reasons to quit or anything, do you?" He must have realized I didn't mean anything from my last statement because he looked away from me and just stared at the space in front of him.

There were more yawns than talks when we reached our sixth bottle. He finally gave in to this one-case minimum when I pointed it out to him that we don't drink that often now anyways. I grabbed for one of the last two remaining slices of pizza left. He waited after my third bite and went for the last one. More silence followed. Halfway through his slice, he poured himself a shot, twirling the ice around in the glass to make the beer cold before drinking it. He then poured another shot and gave the glass to me. I got the glass from him and placed it on the table between us; I finished my pizza first before drinking down my shot. I then went on to stare at the space between me and the vandalized wall across the street.

and so there, both love and guilt

reversed fear.

 

your redemption instead,

 

much on that first introductions.

 

only to be back, yes,

 

but nevertheless not yet.

 

even if only to prove,

 

good things, you can live in their absence as well.

 

yes, even if only for a while.

 

"By my leaning over the precipice
Of your presence and your absense in hopeless fusion
My finding the secret
Of loving you
Always for the first time" (Breton, Andre). 

i will not live forever

i could only but quietly stare at his apparent disbelief.

he was not used to hearing no.

no.

"until when, then?"

i don't know . . .

i have to look for my insignificance again.

i need saving too.

i am no hero.

but i cannot be your damsel in distress.

our story cannot be that easy, even if classic, oh yes.

elegance? we never lacked modesty and our sometimes-overboard humility.

i remember, "don't be too humble; you're not that great."

ouch.

forget my arrogance. up until now, i know nothing still.

you cannot force any more words out of me.

i do not know anything.

take your ivies with you.

your quick-melt bullets.

your well-thought-up phrases.

i gave a knowing smile.

i know love now as well.ü

things less mundane

half old

he complains, "he does not love her enough."

yes, she wants some love to come from her as well.

don't take all the credit for this love we have.

i have given as well.


half blames

"you were never here."

your mind runs on time and infinities.

it's been minutes, i think, just mere fragments

to you

but to me, i've had forevers with you.


half sweet

sugarless, "i seem to have lost my senses somehow."

you laugh.

that story had been wanting to be told.

from you, to me.

somehow stories become a little livelier.


half home.

i know i've found it

yet i had to go

always, my absence had to follow.

half gone.

only because you were half there.

Undress

water on cardboard

i envy her words

we throw each other praises until onlookers decide we must have been the same person once long ago, and that our or my or your narcissism made us or me or you decide to want another entity for a mirror. i laugh when i see a misplaced punctuation. ha! see, i am smarter than you. then i read on. i see courage. then i remember your words. no, you deserve a better word. i then take a little piece of your bravery. oh yes, a mimicry. i then think to myself, she uses different words. unlike mine. not medieval nor renaissant nor victorian. those are the only ones i can come up with so far. she knows a lot too. she's loved. she's loved. i then move my head from side to side--what do you call a horizontal nod? tsktsktsk. a connoisseur. i began to wonder whether it was she who made him the whore that he's become. in some tabooed land, there is a temple where men peer through grids of multicolored laser, awaiting a mistress to lead them to some chamber. i can never understand how they mean when they say to love with the heart. i then search old shelves with cups for display--half cups. half cylinders. and then the clay carabao with one of its horns broken off. fingers like candy. a guitar tuning peg. like frankenstein in a costume party. shame. hidden.

when she reads, does she stick her eyes near the screen sometimes? bloodshot? perhaps not. her crazy dance. limbs flailing, hands unclenched. women. she made her first tambourine with seashells. the sound comes with a ckle in the end. shackled to the sand with threaded thin cyclinellas and coffee-bean trivias.

how do you keep the flame from falling off the wood it stands on. "you throw a strand to a wall. if it sticks, it's cooked." i laughed. not to these walls, not. i drew near to have a feel of it. webs too. i decided not to. something behind that laughter, roarious sometimes, you see. of course, i always wait for you to rescue me. you instead. every time. i will never understand your hate, thus i always return it back. a little childlike, you say, then when you get mad, it becomes childish, foolishness. sometimes you even simply brush me off. thus i hide in your unknown. giggles of knowing friends. matching objects. a pact. forever. lovers were people not mindful much of time.

you make me laugh as well

with the smiles not so often seen.

then immediately sadness when we part

you see, i got too shook up with the quickness of your leaving         

metered word, they say, love, would bring you back

only a feel, a feel, then words

here now mourns one poet

for a death that left her excluded

a whispered, "speak to me in french . . . "

from which you broke into an uproarious laughter

you have mocked my lovemaking again

i then smile, oh you . . .

my scripts are made up of clichés. i see with one, thus i only see one. a table near a sink used to be kitchen enough. culinary with fire. the trees felt the blood touch the ground on which they, too, stand on. then weeping followed. they thought, perhaps such is the case always. then, one of those days, it was explained to them what hematophobia is. "where are the trees' ears, ma?" she then looked down at the child. "they only grow them when you start talking to them. you start with a whisper. then the tree grow ears on its part where it can hear you most clearly." everyday, with her ipod, she takes a seat under her favorite tree, leaning on the nook that she found cradles her just well. she places one of the earpiece beside her, touching the tree. "i won't carve you an ear. i can't play with knives yet."

maybe a story about a woman this time. knowing the things that girls are not supposed to know just yet. women with mysterious smiles. she's tried them too before. deciding one day to pick up a mirror and just play with her face. a woman looks this way, she thought, as she wiped all smile off her face first, then recalled a good memory, a funny memory, but she can't laugh. she must try to look serious still, and slowly, just slowly, let the laughter start with a smile first. slow, graceful. she then let out a giggle. she was being silly, but then she didn't know what that word meant. she didn't talk in her mind yet back then.

she's got it programmed in her. when it hurts her even a tad bit too much, she then shuts it off her conscious thoughts. "at some point, i would have a bad day too." "we're seeing too little of each other lately. maybe we're done." "like you have a bad day now." "oh." "maybe sleep." "yeah."