arkaye kierulf
First Prize, Poetry philippines free press literary awards 2009
Textbook Statistics On average, 5 people are born every second and 1.78 die. So we’re ahead by 3.22, which is good, I think. The average person will spend two weeks in his life waiting for the traffic light to change. Pubescent girls wait two to four years for the tender lumps under their nipples to grow. So the average adult has over 1,460 dreams a year, laughs 15 times a day. Children, 385 more times. So the average adult mates 2,580 times with five different people but falls in love only twice in his life – possibly with the same person. Seventy-nine long years for each of us, awakened to love in our twenties, so more or less thirty years to love our two lovers each. And if, in a lifetime, one walks a total of 13,640 miles by increments, Where are you headed, traveler? is a valid philosophical question to pose to a man, I think, along with Why does the blood in your veins travel endlessly? on account of those red cells flowing night and day
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