Malate Literary Folio Tomo XXXVIII Bilang 1

malate LITERARY FOLIO

MALATE LITERARY FOLIO

MARSO 2022

MALATE LITERARY FOLIO Tomo XXXVIII Bilang 1 Karapatang-ari © 2022

A

ng Malate Literary Folio ang opisyal na publikasyon ng sining at panitikan ng Pamantasang De La Salle - Manila, sa ilalim ng awtoridad ng Student Media Office (SMO).

Ang mga komento at mungkahi ay maaaring ipahatid sa: E-mail address: mlf@dlsu.edu.ph Website: issuu.com/malatelitfolio Facebook: fb.com/malateliteraryfolio Twitter: @malatelitfolio Instagram: @malatelitfolio 503-Media House, Bro. Connon Hall, De La Salle University-Manila, 2401 Taft Avenue, Malate, Manila.

Nananatili sa indibidwal na may-akda o may-dibuho ang karapatang-ari ng bawat piyesang ipinalimbag dito. Hindi maaaring ipalathala muli o gamitin sa anumang paraan ang alin man sa mga nilalaman nang walang karampatang pahintulot ng may-akda o may-dibuho ANG TOMONG ITO AY HINDI IPINAGBIBILI. Mangyaring ipagbigay-alam sa mga patnugot ng Malate Literary Folio ang anumang paglabag ukol dito.

Ang layout ng folio ay gawa ni Elijah T. Barongan. Ang pabalat ay pinamagatang “Judgement” — likha ni Julianna Andrea Villarosa.

INTRODUKSYON They say the eyes are the portals to our souls. Stare into one’s eyes and get lost in a whole different world. Knock and they shall open the door for you — in rare instances of resistance: trust and soon, the bolts will dance with your keys of persistence.

Dig deep and find essence or obscurity in every corner, each portal offers a different encounter. Collect breaths and tears that serve as souvenirs from every wonderland. Each one slowly resembles a person, an occurence, a memory, until it becomes a puzzle piece of a grandiose masterpiece.

See for yourself how vast a temporal being’s actuality is, and peek into its unspoken truths and clear-cut fantasies. Perhaps only then will you uncover life and fiction — through the ambiguity of its grand existence, through the specificity of its minute details, through the lens of those you vaguely notice.

And when you finally unveil its madness, your soul will heed and crave for the sincerity of the same pairs of eyes you met in the portals you’ve been.

LAUREN ANGELA CHUA Punong Patnugot

Nilalaman Introduksyon Prosa Skin Taxi William Geoffrey Lindog

60

Take Your Time Mari Samantha Bersaldo

113

The Final Pionsettia Alliyah Vanessa Provido

123

Sining Judgement Julianna Andrea Villarosa

xv

Champion of the Sun Ines Padilla

43

Sleepy Jean Ines Padilla

46

Obsession Dana Beatrice Tan

66

Recharge Francesca Therese Baltasar

112

Teddy Bear Addie Holgado

132

Tula Your History Mary Jenwil Basila

30

Alamat ng Pagbitay kay Macario Sákay Rio Alma

44

Galatea Jolani Carla Cartalla

47

My lungs are the nation Rigel Ruel Portales

75

Makata Rio Alma

144

Buhay Bossa Nova Jacobe Joaquin Sevilla

147

Retrato Portals Isabella Tuason

1

Dangwa Erin Marie Medina

22

Counting “Cows” Erin Marie Medina

23

No cars, just unicorns Chaunne-Ira Ezzlerain Masongsong

93

kung saan ang liwanag Erin Marie Medina

143

to where ends meet Chaunne-Ira Ezzlerain Masongsong

149

Pasasalamat

PATNUGUTAN Lauren Angela C. Chua Punong Patnugot (OIC)

Alexandra Monique D. Manalo Pangalawang Patnugot (OIC)

Ma. Bea Joelline D. Martinez Tagapamahalang Patnugot (OIC)

Samantha Krissel G. Kwan Patnugot ng Prosa (OIC)

Uriel Anne T. Bumanlag Patnugot ng Retrato (OIC)

Dana Beatrice S. Tan Patnugot ng Sining

Faith Lynnwel P. Dela Vega Patnugot ng Tula

Heavenleigh Faye C. Luzara Tagapamahala ng Events (OIC)

Elijah Mahri T. Barongan

Tagapamahala ng Marketing (OIC) Tagapamahala ng Layout (OIC)

Miguelle P. Cortez

Tagapamahala ng Pagmamay-ari (OIC)

Eloisa O. Sison

Tagapamahala ng Dokyumentasyon (OIC)

mga senyor na patnugot Mary Joy Abalos Van Rien Jude Espiritu Matthew Rafael Florendo Maria Gabrielle Galang Kyle Noel Ibarra Adia Pauline Lim Benedict Lim Cathleen Jane Madrid Jamie Shekinah Mapa Paula Bianca Marana Chaunne-Ira Masongsong Querix Keershyne Rose Recalde Isabella Tuason Cielo Marie Vicencio Vince Gerard Victoria Therese Diane Villanueva Dominique Bianca Yap

mga tagapayo Dr. Mesandel Arguelles Mr. Vijae Alquisola

student media office Ms. Franz Louise Santos

Director

Ms. Jeanne Marie Phyllis Tan

Coordinator

Ms. Ma. Manuela Agdeppa Secretary

Prosa Mari Samantha Bersaldo Jeremy Dale Coronia Daniel Ricardo Evangelista Jihan Marie Claire Ferrer William Geoffrey Lindog Guion Lorenzo Marciano Alliyah Vanessa Provido Jennifer Santos Odelia Raizel Taban

Tula Mary Jenwil Basila Jolani Carla Cartalla Claire Madison Chua Juliah Faye Dela Vega Adrian Neil Holgado Moses Isaiah Ojera Christian Paculanan Rigel Ruel Portales Jacobe Joaquin Sevilla Christian Jeo Talaguit Pauline Sharry Tiu Lorenzo Manuel Villaluna

Sining

KA SA PI

Jacquiline Alagos Francesca Therese Baltasar Pablo Mulawin Casanova Elijah Nicolas Ferrera Adair Nevan Holgado Chloe Julianne Mariano Ines Margarita Padilla Bea So Julianna Andrea Villarosa

Retrato Trisha Marie Baranda Isabella Alexandra Bernal Nigelle Jorgia Louise Lim Erin Marie Medina Sean Xavier Nieva Gabrielle Palmos José Isabel Rea Angelito Raphael Reyta Raymund John Sarmiento II

Marketing & Events Maxine Lee Jan Aireen Magcaling Daniela Racaza Mary John Saquilayan

KONTRIBYUTOR

National Artist

Virgilio S. Almario National Artist for Literature Virgilio S. Almario, popularly known as “Rio Alma” is a leading Filipino poet, critic, translator, literary historian, and university professor who has revived and reinvented traditional Filipino poetic forms, even as he championed modernist poetics.

In 1985, he founded Linangan sa Imahen, Retorika, at Anyo (LIRA), a non-governmental organization for poets writing in Filipino.

mga nagwagi sa

ika-36 na DLSU Annual Awards for Literature & ika-11 na DLSU Annual for Visual Arts

Awards

Poetry Preservations 2nd Place - Rigel Ruel Portales Sanciangco 2nd Place - Adiella Szelou Domingo

100

Take a Dip into my Universe 3rd Place - Raine Denise Albino Violets in the Midday 3rd Place - Scianne Quiroz

24

When love decided to unpack its bags 3rd Place - Pia Concepcion Francisco Nightmares Honorable Mention - Enrique Mariano Perez

Tula Sa kaloob-looban ng iisang kwadrado 1st Place - Pia Concepcion Francisco

14

Saksi ang Araw at Buwan 3rd Place - Trisha Gabrielle Villas Apps and Down 3rd Place - Lauren Angela Chua

79

MISSED CONNECTIONS 3rd Place - Paula Bianca Maraña

84

Patak ng Luha sa Aking Unan 3rd Place - Decar John Capadiso Oo, Nakakalong Ka Pa Honorable Mention - Lemuel Angelo Rayel Mga Masidhing Saloobin Honorable Mention - Renee Isabella Aguila

Short Story To Bleed is The Holiest Thing 2nd Place - Carlo Bautista

2

The Ebony Child 3rd Place - Deo Cruzada

33

Voyeur 3rd Place - Gabriel Luis Ibasco It’s like he’s still here 3rd Place - Alexia Roman A Ghost Problem 3rd Place - Paula Bianca Maraña

52

The Arrival 3rd Place - Dana Isabelle Villano

67

A big baby, Jing in Pink and a box of zesto 3rd Place - Odelia Taban Echoes 3rd Place - Anthony Alexiz Vellon In the Span of Four Hundred Years Honorable Mention - William Geoffrey Lindog

Remember, So I Could Learn to Breathe Honorable Mention - Amelia Clarissa Monasterial Memories Live Long Honorable Mention - Kristen Campos Have You Ever Grieved for What Was Honorable Mention - Caitlyne Cue

Maikling Kwento Tumbang Preso 2nd Place - Lauren Angela Chua Knock Knock 2nd Place - Paula Bianca Maraña Mahirap Maging Mahirap 3rd Place - Isabell Richell Mendoza Ang Pamanang Pamahiin ni Nanay Susan Honorable Mention - Angela Michelle Francheska Engbino

Essay Six Feet Under 2nd Place - Dana Isabelle Villano The Devil Writes A Dream 3rd Place - Scianne Quiroz Through the Aching Windows Honorable Mention - Francesca Madayag The Call Honorable Mention - Paula Bianca Maraña

133

Age of Confusion Honorable Mention - Kylie Niechols Miranda

Sanaysay 在家真的更安全吗? (trans. Is it really safer at home?)

1st Place - Isabell Richell Mendoza Piyesa 2nd Place - Justin Rainier Gimeno Tyler at Casper 3rd Place - Lauren Angela Chua

107

Nilikha Para Sa Iyo 3rd Place - Chanel Jordan Kadalubhasaan sa Kahandaan 3rd Place - Lemuel Angelo Rayel Ang Buhay Na/Sa Sining 3rd Place - Paula Bianca Maraña

Digital Art Sinking Deep Underwater 2nd Place - Francis Omaña

78

Serenades from the Abyss 2nd Place - Renee Isabella Aguila La Perfection n’est pas La Beauté 2nd Place - Andrea Louise Edang

146

How long do I have to wait?

3rd Place - Alexia Roman

106

After College 3rd Place - Ma. Claire Mayor Stand By 3rd Place - Dana Beatrice Tan

65

The Little Prince 3rd Place - Keanna Veyonce Logarta A Series of Lazy Events 3rd Place - Anna Louise Flores Freedom 3rd Place - Amelia Clarissa Monasterial Eskinita 3rd Place - Isabell Richell Mendoza Small Wins 3rd Place - Ines Margarita Padilla

50

Buhay Buhok Honorable Mention - Armando Valdes

Traditional Art Save Yourself in Case of Emergency 1st Place - Alexandrea Rey Casa de Cajel Honorable Mention - Aliexandra Heart Po

59 122

Two Faces of Youth Honorable Mention - Anne Justine Mendoza Elegance of the Dark Honorable Mention - Jennie Villanueva

13

Photography Tatay Alfredo 2nd Place - Katrina Marie Afurong

77

Take a Peek 2nd Place - Kent Harvey Iñgel

76

#IlogPasiglahin 2nd Place - Judd Reinier Flores Bantay-Sarado 3rd Place - Uriel Anne Bumanlag Core 3rd Place - Chaunne-Ira Ezzlerain Masongsong Give and Take 3rd Place - Uriel Anne Bumanlag UUWI NAQ BEYBEH 3rd Place - Isabell Richell Mendoza

74 131

mga

Hurado sa

ika-36 na DLSU Annual Awards for Literature & ika-11 na DLSU Annual for Visual Arts

Poetry

Awards Tula

Mesandel Arguelles Vijae Alquisola

Romulo Baquiran John Teodoro

Short Story

Maikling Kwento

Sigrid Gayangos Emil Flores

Chuckberry Pascual Joselito De Los Reyes

Essay

Sanaysay

Ma. Mahalia Cristina Marci Dawn Marie Nicole Marfil

David Michael San Juan Marie Aubrey Villaceran

Digital Art

Traditional Art

Japhet Benablo Bricx Dumas

Antonio Pastoriza Christina Lopez Photography Eunice Sanchez Albert Labrador

Malate Literary Folio

JULIANNA ANDREA VILLAROSA

Judgement digital art xv

TOMO XXXVIII BILANG 1

Malate Literary Folio

ISABELLA TUASON

Portals 1

Tomo XXXVIII Bilang 1

CARLO BAUTISTA

To Bleed is The Holiest Thing 2nd Place in Short Story, 36th DLSU Annual Awards for Literature

T

hey said I’m the son of an engkanto. They had found me in the hollow of a Balete’s trunk, a firefly flitting around my head. It had strayed from its brothers in the canopy of the tree. A prince from the race of those in our legends. I was special.

And I was special for a long time, until I realized I didn’t tower over the children I played with, that I couldn’t coax honey from the hives of bees like what they said in folklore. Most of the things they said were false, of course. I wasn’t conceived by a miracle. The ones who left me there were either too poor or too young or too unprepared. Perhaps they were all of those things. But whoever they were, they didn’t want me. That must’ve been what the stories were for. It dulled the sting of not being wanted.

But my parents liked to take me back to that hollow. Every year on my birthday, they’d bring me to the outskirts of the woods. They’d give me a crucifix or a rosary. One year it was a statue of the Virgin they had been gifted. And whatever I was holding, they’d ask me to leave in the niche where I was found. It was cobwebbed, smelled of 2

Malate Literary Folio

mildew and wet loam. Carpeted with dried leaves. There would be ants trailing from the roots to where the bark split to form the maw. Then, out of mama’s pouch, sprigs of thyme, a bundle of bayabas leaves that they’d light like matchsticks. They’d whisper thanksgiving, watch the tree inhale the smoke.

It was only recently I realized I could’ve died there. From mosquito bites. From the cold. From starvation. Sometimes, when I placed a crucifix there, I couldn’t help but think it looked like a tomb.

I don’t believe I’ve ever seen my new mother and father grieve.

I’ve seen them go to funerals. My lolo died when I was seven. I didn’t see my father weep, nor my mother. Perhaps there was a sting, an ache. And maybe there was a part of them, like in most of us, that wished him back. But I didn’t know how they mourned if they did. As visitors poured into our home -- lolo was a former barangay captain, much loved -- with heads bent in respect, father was in the woods nearby. I heard the groan of the thin trunks of young redwoods collapse. The faint hacking of an axe. Mother served ginger tea in wooden cups.

The night that Lolo was buried, papa returned to where I was found to burn sage again. He had crept out as mama slept and I pretended to. I tiptoed barefoot to follow him, and mounds of wet loam clung to the soles of my feet and caked the crescents of my nails.

I sniffed, smelled the air’s warning of midnight rain.

Father was also not a man quick to startle. It was as if he sensed everything that crept and burrowed and tunneled through the earth, felt footsteps several yards away, the air disturbed by the flight of a falcon overhead. He could close his eyes and that was when he was in communion with the ground beneath him. The forest and its mangled trees were his church, the soil and wind and water his god.

“The trees speak.” Father’s eyes were still closed, but he raised his head to the canopy.

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“Your grandfather heard their call.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your grandfather now serves the earth he came from, and so he isn’t really dead. When we submit ourselves to the earth, anak, we become deathless. To die is a choice, after all.”

“And who chooses that, tatay?”

He crouched and took a handful of soil. Underneath the clump, the wilted stamen of an orchid. His answer was simple. “Thieves.”

The summer I turned nine, I had my first kill.

A doe. It was scouring through the underbrush. From the size of it, it couldn’t have been more than five years old. It had a gentleness to it that you’d find among the young of its kind. It nuzzled against the bushes tenderly, like it took the drooping leaves for kin. Then it crouched, fell asleep. It didn’t see me hiding behind the trunk of an oak just a few paces away.

My father had given me a shotgun, heavy and difficult to balance against the thinness of my frame. “Kill swiftly,” he had said while placing it on my palm. “Afford them that mercy.”

My pulse quickened. I pointed the barrel straight at where I thought the bullet would ricochet through the animal’s temple. I counted the seconds. One. The flap of quails overhead. Two. The hoot of an owl. Three. The skittering of mice from somewhere under the foliage.

The gunshot rang through the woods. The doe collapsed. Blood pooled around its fur.

I crouched over the body. It was the first time I saw what death looked like. There was something beautiful about it, something alluring in a blank stare, in the helplessness. Later, I’d stick a knife in its belly, 4

To Bleed is The Holiest Thing

breathe the fumes of its carcass as I wrench its guts out of the sinew.

My family would feast on the meat, boil its bones for stock. That, I think, is why it’s so satisfying to be a predator. You are only cruel in that split second that your victim feels the pain. You need only feel remorse for the gunshot, for that one second of agony. All that you do afterwards would no longer feed your guilt. You could be at your vilest. Desecrate the body, sink your teeth into your prey’s innards, play with the corpse. It no longer warrants repentance.

After supper that night, my father wiped his knife clean of the animal’s blood, its curved edge a sinister grin.

“What do we do,” he dropped the blade in the sink, “when we see the dead?”

“We bury them,” I said.

“No,” he said. “The dead still come after they’ve been buried.

Especially to you. You’re special.”

I was busy lacing twine through my boots. The old ones had fibers so undone that they fell apart when I tried to tie them.

I looked up at him. People called my father intrepid. During harvest he wore shirts made of rough sheep hide. He chewed on betel nuts that stained his teeth red, rolled tobacco into pipes and bit into the cylinders and lit them, rolling his tongue around to savor the smoke. He was the happiest when they found me in the hollow.

“Finally,” he had said. “A man to take after me.”

“What do we do?” I asked him.

“You say you’re sorry,” he said. “If they don’t leave, you draw your gun.”

“Why?” “You say sorry if you’ve wronged them.” He crossed over to close the curtains over the windows. “Then you draw your gun because the dead will start killing.”

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The dead never appeared like my father said they would. Just the deer carcass, just the corpses we buried. They were too cold and too stiff to ever speak, to rise and visit me by my cot at night. But I anticipated their arrival. In the dark, I kept myself awake. I imagined figures in the tendrils of moonlight that sifted through the window.

They curled around my fingers like mist, rose and unfurled in the air, danced in the wind. But I’d blink and they’d disappear, and in dismay I’d stretch out to try and catch them. It was the trees that whispered and soothed me to sleep.

I was fifteen when the men from the city came. They arrived lumbering through the night signaled by the headlights on their trucks. They wore clothing of patched green and white and brown.

Rifles were slung on their bodies. Their grimaces formed in semipermanence, carved on granite-grey faces. They knocked on our doors as we slept. They didn’t make their coming silent. I guess the dead don’t lend themselves to the customs of the living.

There were three of them on our front door that night. When mama opened the door for them, one of them pointed a rifle against her temple, and she raised her arms. “Food. And we’d like lodging.”

Commands. Our house shuddered under the weight of their boots.

We served them what little was left of our rice for the week, milkfish with tomatoes, and cups of beer.

My father was the first to speak as we sat with them. “I’m sorry, sirs, but what brings you to the barrio?”

“Rebels.” They didn’t like to answer with greater detail. Perhaps they didn’t lend themselves well to explanations.

“Rebels?”

“From the mountains. Then they came here. Must be among you.” One of them, a man with a voice like the scratching of claws against tree bark. His eyes were bloodshot. I could smell his breath

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To Bleed is The Holiest Thing

from across the table, blood and vomit masked by the pungent smell of liquor.

“What were you told to do with them?” my mother asked. She clung to my father, seemed to try and pacify the air’s electricity with her smile.

“Tidy them up. For peace.” The man smirked as he chewed. I felt his words like needles in my spine. His eyes were almost feline. I had never known a promise of peace could sound so much like a threat.

“And then what?” I was the next to speak. I had learned to inch my way into these conversations as I grew older. Even the ones that hung like putrid meat over the dinner table, those that were too heavy for the words that enveloped them. I felt that, as a child, I had to earn the right to a voice. But now I was nearly a man. I could speak, be bold, or at least pretend. After all, I already know what it’s like to kill. But these men, there was venom in their silence. Like that before a lioness pounced. The silent grayness before a storm whips through the barrio. Like the time I peered at the doe, right before the bullet.

“And then we leave,” the man said.

Perhaps prey become prey not so much because they aren’t fast enough. That’s not always it. Perhaps they just didn’t know when they needed to run. That’s what happened to us, at least. When people hear about what happened, they’d say we should’ve been the first to pounce. Poison them. Brew adelfa leaves, pretend it was tea. We should’ve waited until the toxins trickled through their veins, until they became worms writhing on our table, drool frothing from their mouths. Then we should’ve fled.

But we let them sleep on our beds while we slept on the floor of the kitchen.

During the night, one of them crept out of our quarters, pressed a cigarette between his lips. That one looked the youngest, no longer a boy and yet not quite possessing the hardened ruggedness of the others. Bloodshot, sleepless eyes. An ember among already dead coals.

He saw me still awake, grunted when I sat up from the banig.

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Tomo XXXVIII Bilang 1

“It’s late. Can’t sleep?” Plumes of smoke with every word.

I nodded.

“Scared?”

“No.” “You’re lying. Everyone’s scared of us.”

“I’m not.” I tensed my back, tried to make myself look bigger.

“That’s stupid.” He took a water bottle from a satchel on his waist, nearly empty. In it, he dunked the cigarette to put it out. “Even I was scared of them when I was your age.”

He picked at the soot clinging onto the skin of his arms. Unlike the others with their barrel-shaped bodies, he was thin, sharp angles all over.

“Why should I be scared?”

“Because most of us wanted to be something else before this,” he said. “I wanted to be a teacher.”

I trained my eyes on a moth bobbing around the top of his head.

“What do you mean?”

“Have you ever heard of an animal who doesn’t know why it needs to kill?” He cocked his head to one side. “Nothing will frighten you more.”

“That’s the way they are. They do things without knowing why.”

“But they do know. They’re hungry. They need to survive.”

He walked over to our cupboards, scoffed when a rat the size of a housecat skittered across his feet and darted to the room. From the shelves, he took a clove of garlic and popped it in his mouth. Started gnawing on it. “Do you know why we kill?”

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To Bleed is The Holiest Thing

“You had orders.”

He nodded. “But animals don’t need orders to kill. They make the decision when they need to.” He blew his nose into his sleeve. “But we have others doing the thinking for us.”

“Then what are your reasons?”

He glanced at the room where the others slept, snoring, and I wondered what their dreams were. I wondered if there were trenches in their minds, built to keep memories of their victims at bay. I wondered how many men you had to kill to convince yourself that it was never what you wanted.

“I don’t know,” he said. “But they took me in. Gave me the chance to become something I was afraid of. It’s better than running away.”

He slinked back into the room after that. I didn’t sleep. Instead I watched a cellar spider crawl across the floor. I stayed still when it crept up my fingers, didn’t move as it made its way up my arm. I studied the bands on its legs, the spindle-like limbs. Bite me, I thought.

Like a command. Like I knew it could listen. Bite me. But it hurried down my arm to a web in the corner of the kitchen, approaching a moth in its trap.

I decided to slink into the woods. Barefoot, no shotgun this time.

Father told me once that there is a time where we take from the earth for the sustenance of our bodies, and other times our souls. And very rarely, souls that are not our own.

There was always something inside of me that came undone, a knot that unraveled when my feet met the moisture of earth blessed with August rains. I sank my ankles in shallow brooks, inhaled the perfume of fog. I listened to cicadas, tapped the heads of the mushrooms that sprouted from a Narra’s roots. I watched a beetle

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Tomo XXXVIII Bilang 1

tumbling on a fallen log. I ate the wild berries that grew from the base of a redwood, sucked their juices from my fingers. I hopped through the underbrush to a part of the forest I was unfamiliar with, and there I saw the fireflies. They glided through the air, winking as they flew in and out of leaves. One flew close to my hand, wandered there without its light. I found it strange how ordinary it looked among the other insects, how uninteresting a bug it would be without its luminescence.

More amusing still, the way their light is really the only thing we can ever love about their kind.

That was when I heard the barking of orders. Faint; I would’ve missed the sound had it not been dead quiet. Men’s voices. Then they went still.

That was when I ran.

It was my mother. The first I found dead. A wound through her heart, another at her temple. Still in her bed. She didn’t wake when they attacked. Father next. He was the one who tried to struggle, I could tell. Woken up only after mother died. Our herbs spilled from their jars, chairs overturned. His body was splayed over the cupboard, a knife dug into his chest, his shotgun at his feet. The bruise of a rifle butt on his cheek.

I knew how they would’ve told my story to those in the city. They will say I was too shocked to mourn and that I ran without minding the gravel that bled my soles. They will say that when I fled to warn the others in the barrio, I saw the other houses in flames. On the television, they will say a boy was seen running to the soldiers rather than away from them. They will be confused why I barged into the houses, and I would’ve told them my reasons. I wanted that soldier, the one who talked of animals and why they killed. I wanted to know his name. I wanted him to know mine. I would’ve told them that these men liked to blur the line between assailant and victim. I would’ve told them that I knew their games, that as a hunter, I knew who was who.

I knew how to play it, perhaps better.

And so I allowed them to think they saw me when I saw them.

These men would say they chased me into the forest, when in reality 10

To Bleed is The Holiest Thing

I led them there. Two of them set out for me, one of them the one who shared our home.

They once said I’m the son of an engkanto, and yet I was in no way a miracle to those who found me. I had been left behind as a child. But I was taken again. Like the beings of legends, I knew I could die and still win. Better still, I knew I was deathless as father told me so. And since I was deathless, I would be part of the earth that sustained me. I will nourish the tree I was found in. I would be part of the flowers that bow to it, the bees that sip on their nectar. Or I would rather turn into a maggot, wriggling in the crevices of their corpses, digging my way through eye sockets, underneath their nails, through their throats and out again. Before I fall in this life, I’ll show them how the prey becomes the predator. And when I rise in the next, I will show them again.

“There!” The same soldier I spoke to. I heard his footfalls snapping twigs, the crunch of leaves. He was close. I wondered what I looked like to him. Was I a shadow, hard to make out in the dark? Did he get exhilarated when he thought of his victim’s fear? Did he lust the closer he got to putting a bullet between my eyes? Would he do to me the same things others said they did to children? Would he sleep again in another house, massacre them the same?

I found the Balete with the hollow, towering over the others around it. Tatay said once that it would take ten men to encircle it with arms outstretched. Its roots coiled through the ground, seemed to snarl as if they lived. I placed my hand on the thrum I felt on my ribcage, knelt. There, I waited. I would die where my life began.

When the soldiers arrived, I remember them laughing. And I remember them asking me to beg, to ask for something. And I did.

“My name, sir. Do you know it?” I looked straight at the hollow.

The womb that gave birth to me. A name disarms killers, Tatay said once. A nameless face, you are but an animal for them to slaughter. A faceless name, you are but a character in the stories they tell. A face and a name, you become real. What is real haunts their sleep. What is real is difficult to spin lies on.

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He scoffed. “Get it over with.”

I smiled when I felt him raise the rifle mouth against the back of my head. “Leon.” I wanted to see his face. I wanted to see the hesitation, a fidget in his fingers that told me he wanted to let me go.

But it was enough to hear the clearing of his throat.

I closed my eyes, heard the loading of the rifle barrel. Only they would know my name. My village’s story will be the talk of the other barrios, in the cities beyond our province. They will take our deaths as warnings. I will bleed and that will be my service.

Overhead, the leaves made a sound like a chain of whispers, and I imagined they were saying my name.

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INSERT AUTHOR’S NAME

Insert Title Here

Text

JENNIE VILLANUEVA

Elegance of the Dark acrylic on canvas Honorable Mention in Traditional Arts, 11th DLSU Annual Awards for Visual Arts

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Tomo XXXVIII Bilang 1

PIA HAUTEA FRANCISCO

Sa kaloob-looban ng iisang kwadrado 1st Place sa Tula, 36th DLSU Annual Awards for Literature

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Malate Literary Folio

#1: Sa Tarangkahan Kahapon, Buong maghapon kitang Hinintay na dumating Nilapag na ang iyong tsinelas Sa may tarangkahan, Nawalisan na ang buhok Ng aso, wala nang Makakapagpa-bahing sa’yo kundi ang sangsang ng Pabango ni Toto.

Iniwan kong bukas ang pintuan Ng banyo matapos kiskisin Ang lalamunan ng kubeta, pakintabin ang lababo.

Amoy Denenes Na may bagong-hugas na Mansanas, pang-hotel na, Gaya ng gusto mo.

Kaya nang matunaw ng kagaw At alat ng batok.

Ngayon Sasalubungin palang kita Subalit sinalubong mo na ako

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Wala tayong imikan, Wala kang naulit na May tampo’t hinanakit sa akin Dahil ba hindi kita nabuhat?

O dahil nag-alinlangan akong Yapusin, masahin ang braso Mong parang tapay, Pipitak palang ang araw Gusto mo nang bumigay.

Sa haba ng panahong Nakahimlay sa lambot ng ‘yong Bulubundukin ng unan, nakumot na ng Katotohanang walang katiyakan Ang mga sandaling ito Wala itong kaugnayan Sa alumpihit ng pagsipot Ng panghinaharap Ngunit Ma, wala kang naiulit Na gusto mo nang bumigay

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#2: Ang ‘Yong Kusina Nangungulila ako Sa sarsa ng kare-kareng Kahit anong haba ng pananatili Sa kusinang munti Ay hindi mo naituro sa akin Kung may ipinagkaiba Sa pagkakahabi Sa linamnam o kagat ang Kasim at pigue, kung ano ang ambag ng tuwalya, Kung bakit mahalaga na Walang tatak ang pampalapot Na peanut butter Ngunit nauunawaan ko Kung bakit mo ipinunla ang Puno ng atsuete sa bakanteng lote Upang hindi ka na umalis Magpakalayo, At magmadaling umuwi, Upang hindi na patayin Ang sarili sa paghabol ng hininga upang makayuko nang may kapayapaan sa iyong pusong hindi na Marunong mamahinga

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sa pag-aalinlangan at pag-aalala kahit kami ay busog sa tulog sa iyong tabi.

Sapagkat ang totoong maghihintay sa’yo ay ang kalan at ako at kami sa hapag.

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#3: Pangkilay Nakatitig ang mukha sa sanaw Malinaw ang maliliit na hukay Sa mukha ngunit hindi ang laman, Mga pekas at butil-butil sa may Isla, sa may parang ng iyong ilong Ilalapat ang lapis at guguhitan Ang balat kung nasaan dapat nakatanim Maninipis na buhok ng ‘yong kilay Palalaguin muli ang nanlalagas na, Iitiman ang naglalahong kulay, Bibigyan kita ng buhay Kahit sa biglaang pagpapahimakas Walang binawi kundi ang hininga Na aking kalinaw at ang tanging Ipinangpapawi sa poot ng Pananatili

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#4: Ang Totoong Teolohiya Kung papaano ka tinuruan magdasal Ay kasabay ng pagsasanay sa pistola Ng ‘yong amang namayapa na mahigit Limang dekada na ang nalusaw sa mga Luha mong pinatak na tubig sa pitsel, Walang maalat o mapait na panlasa Sa pagkitil sa’yong mga daliri Ay hindi bunga ng ’yong pagtataksil Kundi ang pagbibingi-bingian Sa pang-aalipusta, pag-mamanipula At bagamat ito lang ang sanhing Mauunawaan ko kung bakit siya ang diyos mo

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#5: Estranghero Kahit may pagsulyap-sulyap ang tinig Estranghero ako sa kapatagan At pagkabaku-bako ng pag-ibig Buong akala’y kilalang-kilala na ito Kung hindi bilang kabiyak ay bilang salamin, Kung hindi sa dugo’y sa ngipin, sa buto Sa pagsupil ng alikabok ng kahapon Ni pangalan, ni mukha’y hindi maala-ala’t Naitapon na, nabaon na nga pala ang bubog

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ERIN MARIE MEDINA

Dangwa 22

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ERIN MARIE MEDINA

Counting “Cows” 23

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SCIANNE M. QUIROZ

Violets in the Midday 3rd Place in Poetry, 36th DLSU Annual Awards for Literature

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I. Myth The sea roared in electric blue like a candy from a stranger in the shape of water— wise in cloaking, all its crimson.

How poor was my caution?

The riptide pulled from the waves and I plunged anyway.

The sea sang of its mysteries; half part scales, half part body.

The wisest ships of the oldest stories sunk in their foolish curiosity.

How poor was my memory?

Tails that draw sailors underneath steal their songs from fantasies.

But the sea I fled a voyage ago, leaving the mystery unsolved, and my lungs empty of luring songs.

Sometimes I still see the indigo the skies get from the sea’s reflection.

Sometimes I still see his shadows sailing the sea, shaped like water.

I survived the riptide, but not the mystery.

I was history, but he was a myth.

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II. Violets in the Midday I opened my eyes to the warm haze of midday; You stood by my bedside like the old lamp I have gone back and forth for across town.

There was electricity in your corneas, like lilacs buried in a sangria ocean.

We exchanged wine glasses as if it was one past midnight where stars coincide with liaison, not in the muted glare, of the midday sun.

I hardly ever place my palms together in front of statues and candles and flowers.

I have not raised my chin to the skies or bowed my head to the concrete ground.

There was no womb that fostered my longing nor a ray of light who shined upon it.

But you were a feast, not a litany, not a string of repetition lost in dynamic.

Violets screamed the color of homecoming where I reared my heart, and where I buried it.

You and I were a sacred beginning, the kind of mercy, churches follow so blindly.

Their salvation will equate to our ending, but our hymns I’ll be singing towards my death —our aging youth, our misplaced innocence the permanent euphoria, the mercurial heaven.

I opened my eyes to the warm haze of midday; I stood by my bedside like the old lamp I have gone back and forth for across town.

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III. Eclipse Morning flicks the switch of the half-asleep sun, still lost in the gleam of dead evening stars, and the moon’s ill promise.

I turned to wishes now I reap the debts my soul has missed.

The farthest in space hears the pulse behind my ribs, the snaps behind my caging.

I swore to Saturn’s rings I shall not wish of love in piercing volumes I could never study. drapes ripped off my windows, my musings sent the skies to dim blacks interrupt oranges stars shot from their bed, I closed my eyes, revered the scene.

I shall learn in the next eclipse.

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IV. That Which I Do Not Own I dream of telling you what I dream in my sleep, but all are bruised with nightmares made of murders plotted by the innocence of fragility.

I do not wish to scar that which is not broken; Think of how the clouds feel when rainbows betray their confusion, cutting the whites with colors to dress in dazzling peace.

Peace— what I could not misuse, nor squander in sentiment and repressed sorrow.

I do not wish to lose that which I do not own.

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V. Love, Irony I “love” you, as confusion and certainty uttered vows to each other.

I “love” you as I stood like a trophy between pining and casualty.

I “love” you as the violence of August burgled into my summer.

I “love” you as the flickering hysteria nursed my tranquility.

I “love” you as truth found solace in the warmth of dishonesty.

I “love” you as I wondered, wasting space, how people wager their lives for this.

I “love” you as I measured its weight— the best you could hear and the worst I could say.

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Your History MARY JENWIL BASILA paglalarawan ni Mary Jenwil Basila

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I will search for you in the little girl Who knew how to play with haystacks And forced to take care of children At the age of 16.

Whose hands were one with the seasons: Growing palay to avoid starving on rainy days And collecting itlog na pula to sell on summer mornings At busy fish markets miles away.

With children joined at her hips like a vertical duyan; A basket for a blanket and “bili na!” for lullabies.

Youth as a currency for bills needed to be paid, A point in time owned by survival.

I will search for you in history books As a nurse during World War II. No name, no mentions of Alejandra, But you were the woman who knew which mountains hid the crew.

Whose eyes never faltered With the sight of marching death threats in uniforms, All holding guns like a sickle about to hit the ground— Harvested palay on your shoulder turning into bodies to be mourned.

Like stitches on mottled skin, Some prayers are better left in nipa huts.

Glory Be for the fallen, Hail Mary for those who survived against all doubts.

I will search for you in the easier breaths Released sixty years later in the cold evening air.

Swinging on a duyan while eating left-over pandesal With traces of the sunset skies in your stare.

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Whose body is bedridden on bad days, A tired sigh echoing when joints feel too stiff.

On good days, you walk to the farm meters away from home And the breeze kisses your cheeks with wishes unfulfilled.

Like a valley where you wanted to be a meadow, Some dreams don’t end up for you.

But in the same farm, in the same field, Our futures are rooted in the life you went through.

You who survived a world war, You who witnessed the becoming of life anew— In the stories we have yet to uncover, And memories that also feel new to you, I will search for you, I will search for you.

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DEO CRUZADA

The Ebony Child 3rd Place in Short Story, 36th DLSU Annual Awards for Literature

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Once there was a fisherman who wearily went out to sea. After a

long while, he caught a log in his net. The log immediately struck his attention as a thing of beauty with its dark glossy ebony wood and shiny polished sheen. Realizing that this is no ordinary piece of driftwood, he brought it home to dry. Night passed. To his surprise when he woke up, he saw not the log but a child sleeping on the ground.

The child had a short stature, curly hair, and the log’s ebony color.

Despite the initial confusion upon seeing the child, his long-forgotten fatherly instinct kicked in, bringing the sleeping child inside his humble abode and placing him on the sole bed. It would not be long until the child finally woke up. The first thing he sees is his hunched-up father figure, watching over him carefully. He could see through his woozy vision, the visage of a middle-aged man, tired yet filled with joy. His forehead betrays wrinkles forged from hard work under the sun, his eyes are drooping, and his cheeks are hollow. Upon realizing the child woke up, however, his eyes brightened, and a faint smile spread across his face.

The young child finds that he cannot leave his bed, struck down by a great headache and a fever. Exhaustion it must’ve been, exhaustion so great that it is as if he had travelled from the ends of the earth.

Immediately, the fisherman dropped his plans to go out to sea once again to take care of the boy. Something inside him bestowed upon him a great energy that animated his body to move like clockwork, cooking hot meals and giving him water as the great sun passed into the evening.

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As darkness fell the boy fell asleep again, and the fisherman watched as the gentle moonlight rested on his peaceful face. The man took his charge’s warm feverish hand. He looked upon him, lost in thought, as the halls of his memory conjured the happy smile of another childlost to the ages — lost to the sea as his mother desperately clutched him in her arms as they sank to the depths. He then realized that the same capricious sea that took his family long ago has now given him a new one. He was determined to do things right and be the best father he can be, to this ebony orphan of the sea.

The child soon awakened in the middle of the night to the fisherman keeping watch over him. He tried to get up but the fisherman insisted that he lay down and rest. After a long period of silence, the fisherman asked the boy if he was fine. The boy gave a slight nod. Another long period of silence, the fisherman then asked where he had come from.

Alas, the boy struggled to remember: for memory was engulfed in a great haze, obscuring the visions in his mind, he could not remember how he had gotten there, only that he was saved by this fisherman. With no memory of his old relations, he decided to stick with this fisherman who had plucked him out of the sea and cared for him.

The next day the child’s fever abated, and the father decided to go out to sea. The child begged his father to let him go fishing as well. The father did not relent, still wary of the past. What if something were to happen? The sea is a cruel and capricious world after all.

The morning sea glittered as he rowed his boat. The flying fish frolicked and fluttered about the gentle waves. He cast his net into the water and waited. Tired from the rowing and his lack of sleep, he struggled to keep awake. Despite his fatigue, he spotted a familiar figure walking carefree on the waves, fish jumping in his wake with the early sun shining a golden aura on him. The fisherman’s eyes widened. That was his son!

He hurriedly pulled up his net and paddled over, all the while calling out to him. The child took notice and walked towards the boat, climbed over the side, and gave his dad a hug. The fisherman was still in shock about the whole incident, but he eventually gave a tight hug back.

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The father and son would spend the rest of the day in the sea, the father casting his net into the waves while the son would play around the boat. As they were about to go home, however, the gentle morning breeze gave way to a turbulent afternoon gale. The waves grew angry.

The father’s humble boat was tossed around. Besieged in his boat, he could only cry out for his boy, terrified of losing him. The child saw the chaotic scene and shouted out to the sky to stop.

The winds obeyed. The clouds parted, making way for the rays of the tropical sun that danced warmly on their skin. The waves slowly began to lose momentum, and the gentle breeze returned.

The years passed. The child grew in love with the people. Despite the march of the years, the boy maintained his youthful radiance as well as his short stature and childlike demeanor. Age did little to batter him. His great youthful energy made him a mainstay of communal life.

The Village Elder took a liking to him, despite all the mischief the boy would cause him. Sometimes, as he would take his lunch in a shed near the village center, he’d find a dried fish missing from his meal. As he looked up, he’d find the boy smirking at him. Immediately, he would let out a loud booming scream of anger at the direction of the boy, who in turn would proceed to run away at great speed.

His antics aside, he cared deeply for the people around him. In times of dire need, the boy would work his miracles. There was this time when a terrible drought struck the village. The tropical sun threw a great tantrum and chased away the clouds. The previously warm and gentle rays increased in intensity and cruelty. As a result, the rains disappeared, and the wells began to dry up. The people grew desperate and pleaded loudly for rain. The boy noticed their plight and angrily rebuked the sun, who did not take notice and carried on with his terror.

Angry with the sun’s response, he began to rally the clouds to fight back against the sun. The sun fought hard but was eventually overwhelmed by the clouds and humbled. The clouds thanked the boy for hishelp by bringing forth a great drizzle. The people felt the relieving sensation

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of cool rain and began to rejoice. Realizing who was responsible for the return of rain, the people began to holdhim up in jubilation and reverence.

Even as time went on, and as he grew popular, he never forgot the father who had brought him in on that fateful day. The father’s greying hair, wrinkled skin, and feeble movements contrasted the child’s youthful aura. However, the boy still felt great joy whenever that old face displayed his faint smile.

It was like any other tropical day, with the sun shining ardently over the land, the waves ebbed and flowed, the palm trees swaying calmly to the beat of the breeze. People were resting in their houses as a reprieve from the heat. But everyone resting on the beach began to witness a great sight beyond the summer haze. Black Galleons, ships larger than any boat that they ever seen, began to appear on the horizon.

Their large wooden exteriors and massive sails casted an intimidating silhouette. Out of these ships came smaller boats rowing towards the shallows. Not long after, strange iron men emerged onto the beach, their large metal breastplates gleamed in the sun and their heavy metal boots sunk steadily into the sand. A small crowd gathered around them.

They stood eerily still, rigidly holding in their hand strange wooden sticks. Their leader finally arrived on shore and shouted a command which caused them to part, making way for him.

The villagers could hardly believe what was going on. There were whispers of similar metal figures appearing on other islands long ago but they have been welcomed in peace. But in this case, with such a display of cold force, they weren’t here for a warm welcome.

The boy watched the spectacle unfold alongside his elderly father.

The Iron Leader had with him an interpreter, tattoos painted all over his body, and his long flowing hair tied up in a bandana. He looked like he had come from one of the neighboring islands. The interpreter raised his voice and asked to see the village elder. The Elder eventually stepped forward and the Leader listed off his demands. The child realized that he had a vague understanding of what the Leader was saying, as if he was familiar with such a strange tongue before.

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As the interpreter began to translate the demands, it became clear to the crowd that they would not be able to achieve them without starving. Sensing the restlessness and anger in the crowd, the leader shouted an order to his men. They raised their sticks into the air and an awful thunderous smoke cloud emerged. Frightened, much of the crowd began to disperse leaving just the Elder, the father and son, and a few others. The leader simply turned to them and through the translator said that he expects the offerings when he returns in a few days.

Just as he was about to leave, the ebony skin of the child caught his attention. His eyes were fixed on him for a few moments. Then his expression changed into one of utter surprise, then he simply frowned and began muttering something to his translator. The translator came over and told the small crowd, “The child, that is no ordinary child.

Forget the tribute, we want him back. You have three days to decide.”

Those who were there were dumbfounded. They were unsure what to do. When the Iron Men left, the Elder sat silently, contemplating what to do. That very night he convened a council, the different members of the village stood by the glowing fire. The crisp and crackling of the fire sang a symphony along with the crickets. What was discussed precisely is lost to time, but it was said that the members of the council came out with a sober determined face.

The boy himself did not understand why they wanted him back.

All the boy knew was that these great Iron Men would not even leave them alone if he was not handed over. The decision left him in great agony. In the porch of their hut, under the starry night sky, he sat next to his old father, who also looked forlornly into the darkness of the sea.

The boy wondered if it would be right for him to give himself up for the sake of his people. The father also thought about that too, and such thoughts pained him. If the boy had to give himself up then the boy that he had taken in all those years ago, the joy of his life, would have to be lost to him too.

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After three days the Iron Men returned to the beach. Their metal forms once again gleamed in the tropical sun. The father and son, the village elder, and a small crowd of warriors and militiamen stood facing them. A tense standoff ensued, the warriors clutching their spears and the Iron Men clutching their thunderous weapons. It was clear in the eyes of everyone involved that blood could be spilled if nothing was done soon.

The leader grew impatient and ordered his men to fire. They lifted up their weapons and let loose a thunderous barrage of smoke. The boy and his father fled away from the beach and into the tree line. The warriors who weren’t hit raised their swords and descended upon the men. A fight ensued as the air filled with the sounds of clashing metal.

A terrible smell reminiscent of rotten eggs also wafted around the beach. The sight absolutely terrified the boy whom, despite having lived for decades at this point has yet to seen the carnage of battle firsthand.

The sounds of screams and clashing swords, the smell of that foul horrid odor , and the awful shedding of blood painted a grisly scene on the beach were an assault on his senses. He was effectively catatonic as he and his father hid among the palm trees as the battle raged on.

Amidst the chaos of battle, it was becoming clear that the warriors were being beaten back. The powerful weapons and metal armor of the Iron Men proved more than a match. However, his father, embracing him, said softly into his ear: “Please, we need you, you have been there for us before, save us again.”

The boy realized that what was at stake, and immediately snapped out of his trance. At that pivotal moment, called upon the waves to smash against the attackers. The Iron Men were whipped around cruelly and effortlessly by the shallows. The clouds then came to the aid of the boy, the bombastic sounds of thunder trumpeting loudly all aicross the battlefield. Seeing that the very forces of nature were against

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them, the Iron Men quickly lost heart and began to retreat into their boats. The leader however was caught by the warriors and they attacked him mercilessly. He was only barely alive when he was brought before the elder and the father and son. The son knelt down and looked upon the dying man of iron. With all his strength the leader mumbled a little prayer, reached out to the boy and placed his hand on his forehead At that moment the haze in his mind had finally lifted, and he had begun to remember. He once spent his days among these Iron Men. They came from the lands beyond the horizon, strange lands made of brick and mortar. They have brought him with them because they revered and respected him. They looked to him as a source of hope and morale, and so they paid him homage and asked for his help in dire times. However, one day, after a horrible battle with the natives of another island, the crew staged a mutiny. In the utter chaos that followed, the boy was swept up and accidentally thrown into the sea.

The spirits living there took pity on him, and transformed him into a log. The transformation took a toll on him physically and mentally, placing the great haze around his mind. But he survived, floating up to the surface and drifting along the gentle waves for days.

But he also remembered how he was found again. How he was nurtured and loved by his new adoptive father. He remembered that the island became a new home and family that had loved and accepted him.

The home that these Iron Men had threatened to destroy. With these memories in mind, the child of two worlds made his choice. He simply looked on the dying man, and without hesitation stood up, turned his back on him and walked away. At the moment the boy turned his back on him, the leader gave his last breath and his hand dropped: his light extinguished.

A few years later, his father’s light too would begin to wane: the ravages of old age have begun to wear at him. He could no longer go out to sea and fish anymore. He had become bedridden.

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The boy kept watch over his dying father. He was attentive to his every need. He had dropped all his work. Every day, he would notice his father’s state slowly deteriorating, his breathing became labored, his cheeks became hollower, he moved less and less until he could only feebly nod his head. Until one day, as the sun slowly emerged from the horizon, the light in the father began to flicker out. He could see through his dying eyes, the visage of his exhausted son holding his hand looking back at him with great concern. His bloodshot eyes betrayed his exhaustion and the nights of crying, his shoulders were drooping, and his ebony complexion lost some of its luster, after a while he slowly began to close his eyes and with the last of his energy, faintly smiled one last time, and passed on.

The boy mourned for days. He was effectively inconsolable. He would eventually appear to have recovered and his old radiance would return after a while. However, behind that happy face of his, the grief and loss still remained and it weighed heavily on him.

One day he would simply disappear into the jungle, passing into legend. While no one has ever seen him again, the old folk would occasionally find that their dried fish still stolen from underneath them.

Missing fishermen who were lost in storms would often turn up on the shore miraculously still alive. Often, they would recount that the last thing they remember seeing before their boat capsized is a mysterious figure walking calmly among the tumultuous waves.

Even today, if you are visiting the island and you are observant enough you may still observe such a mysterious figure, skipping, playing, and dancing among the fluttering flying fish.

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INES PADILLA

Champion of the Sun digital art

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RIO ALMA

Alamat Ng Pagbitay Kay Macario Sákay Noong dakpin daw si Macario Sákay Hugas-kamay si Gomez sa pagdamay; Naghari ang karimlan sa Cavite: Pumutak ang katyaw, at sinalakay Ng tipaklong ang lumulungting palay.

Nang dalhin ang bandidong presidente Sa karsel ng Tolentino’t Ricarte, Nahapis ang mga Tagalog, pero Nagpista ang mestiso’t negosyante, Nagbangkete’ng konstable’t gabinete.

Nang litisin ang puganteng barbero Sa hukumang tigib sa áso’t loro: Inusig muna ang simarong buhok, Inusisa kung sino ang maestro, At pinagdasal ng santong milagro.

Nang ang pusò ni Sákay ay tumibok Natanghal ang Mithing banal sa bundok At ang Diwang malayà’t pumipiglas . . .

Ang usig sa naroong matáng-manok: “Bakit natitiis ang Bayang lugmok?”

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Nang isakdal ang rebelde sa wakas Ibinintang patí ipa ng bigas, Napesteng baboy, at maplemang apog.

(Kuko’t pakpak ng Agila’y nagtinghas, Kayâ butás kahit tinig ng Batas.)

Nang hatulan ang Hari ng Tagalog Napatda ang planeta sa pag-inog.

“Ay, kay-sawîng Bayan!” daíng ng hangin, At itinaghoy ang handog at irog Ng mga bayaning Ayaw-Matúlog.

Nang umagang si Sákay ay bitayin Nakaitim ang dambana’t damdamin; May bakod na sundalo ang bilibid; Ngunit panatag siyá nang sapitin Ang Hanggahan ng buháy at alipin.

Nang tingnan ni Sakay ang paligid Nangalisag patí silò ng lubid; At namutla ang berdugo’t gatilyo Nang siyá’y sumigaw: “Mga kalítid, Magngálit hangga’t ang dampa ay pawid!

“Walang layà hangga’t hari ang dayo!

Walang Ligaya hangga’t takót táyo!

Makibáka! Itaboy ang kaaway!”

Dilà niya’y nag-apoy, namartiryo Ang sampung sundalo’t ang monasilyo.

At nang bigtihin si Macario Sákay Duguan daw ang Araw na sumilay, May ungol na lumindol sa Montalban, Sa gubat ng malalim na pagnilay May kabayong naghihintay ng sakáy.

22 Nobyembre 2021

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INES PADILLA

Sleepy Jean digital art

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JOLANI CARLA CARTALLA

Galatea

I. The Statue There is no difference In the everyday I have lived so far.

I sit on a stone that is smooth and marbled, Polished into a perfect square Yearning to be something more than porcelain And unmoving and uncertain.

I can feel the harsh bite of winter, Crawling on my skin as I sit As still as can be with trembling thighs, With shivering lips, if they could…

But stone cannot move, even minutely; Stone cannot complain or speak of its fate.

Yet if I was given a voice, I would tell stories of a world Where no color can be seen.

Only black and white, different shades Of whatever that makes of me, Though unlike me, it is alive; It is not static nor is it frozen in time.

And I am what it is not; Not proud, not sorry Not anything at all.

Something that cannot be moved; Something that yearns to be someone.

But there is nothing, nothing I can do— I am but an ocean, pining for the moon.

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II. The Sculptor I knew I was made for him.

My sculptor, my creator The half to my whole— Two bodies in a room, A whisper away from one another.

I am no artist, but I knew how to carve Into my mind the shape of his lips, The soft contours of his chest as he breathes, The calluses on his palms— A sign of his devotion to me.

He runs his hands on my marbled body; Scrutinizing, carving, polishing, Fingertips dancing along my spine, As he would brush off the dust that resides On the body that is mine and his at the same time.

Yet there is no reason to breathe, To move, or to feel his gentle hands on mine If all I could do is watch and stay still.

Piece by piece, I feel more whole, more human More worthy of having a life…

But I am something; I am a consciousness, a hunger, A life that is hidden in a cold, hard facade.

I am a sleeping river in the heart of snow, And he is the warmth I am longing for.

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III. The Ocean and The Moon When dawn cracks the surface, The moon will find itself In the embrace of the ocean.

Caressing a face That was once out of reach.

It felt like a vivid dream Where the world was in motion without me.

The monochrome life I had known Suddenly bled into color, As I let out my first exhale.

I come to life as a river in spring; Cracking and melting in the warmth Of love and rebirth.

Of life finding its place Among those who were asleep.

The stillness melts like snow, Falling off a petal When winter loses its grip.

My lover stands before me, Lips parted at the sight before him.

We are but a spark in Aphrodite’s eyes; Our love is small, but flickering, Leaving cracks on smooth porcelain.

My lover held me in his arms and I knew, He is the spring of my winter.

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INES PADILLA

Small Wins

3rd Place in Digital Art, 11th DLSU Annual Awards for Visual Arts

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Tomo XXXVIII Bilang 1

PAULA BIANCA MARAÑA

A Ghost Problem 3rd Place in Short Story, 36th DLSU Annual Awards for Literature

My brother has always been haunted by ghosts the rest of us couldn’t see.

Sometimes, he just starts to stare at a corner, shoulders drawing up like he could feel fingers digging into it, shaking his head like there’s someone’s breath tickling the back of his neck. They used to tell me stories about my big brother, when he used to share a room with our eldest, that he used to walk around the house in his sleep, that our big brother would watch him stand up and leave him to skulk around our house like a ghost haunting our hallowed halls, and he would just find himself in the middle of the kitchen, hands reaching for the knife, no clue how he got there, or what would have happened if he didn’t wake up.

Now, he has these moments of everyday terror, where he barges into my room and asks me why I called him, when I haven’t spoken out loud in an hour. Sometimes when we talk, he doesn’t look at me but over my shoulder. At night, he lays alone in his room and doesn’t

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sleep, the voices in his head too loud and the singing in his balcony too haunting, the darkness feeling like it would eat him alive if it can, if he would just lay there and let it consume him.

When this happens, I would hear a knock on the door in the dead of the night, and open it to see him, eyes hollow, asking if he could stay here for a while, and it felt more like a plea than a question. So I leave my door open for him to walk in, and he brings his pillow and his blanket, lays them out on the floor because he’s too big to fit in my twin-sized bed, and too old to be cuddling his little sister whenever he feels scared. He plans to sleep like that, wood unforgiving on his back and fear digging into his heart.

He tells me about them, and his voice feels far away, like he’s talking to me with walls between us, like his body’s still sitting in the bedroom across the hall: the old lady in his balcony, singing the same, haunting song over and over and over until he can hear it even in his dreams. The woman in the corner of his room, who sometimes sits on his chest and stops him from breathing. Our big brother, who died years and years ago, who he sometimes finds sitting on his bed like they still share the same room. The man standing on the back of my bedroom door, who followed him there, and my brother looks at me and sighs, says he’ll brave the darkness of his own bedroom so that I won’t have to sleep in the same room as a ghost.

Sometimes, I fail to see the difference between him and the things he sees.

Sometimes, I see right through him.

The next day, I jolt up from my sleep to the sound of the scream, and take off running to my brother’s room across the hall, wrenching open his door and seeing him frozen in the center of his bed, chasing his breaths like something is bearing down on him with its full weight, hands clasped tightly around his neck.

I call out his name, and he lurches back like he’s wrenching himself away from a nightmare looking him right in the face, and when he

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looks at me it feels like he’s fading away, a disappearing act unfolding right in front of my eyes, even though he’s right there, inches away, close enough to touch.

He pulls himself up and walks right through me, like he can’t even see I’m there.

We’re called downstairs to eat breakfast, and my mother has a visitor who looks over my brother’s shoulder and then looks at him in alarm.

“May babaeng nakabitin sa ‘yo”, she says, and my brother’s breath hitches as though something’s tightening around his neck. “Alam mo ba na nandiyan siya?”

My brother looks away from her and doesn’t answer, and she sighs, turns to my mother, writes down an address from our hometown on a piece of paper and gives it to her, telling us to take him there as soon as we can, before it’s too late.

“Ano?” My mother asks, and the visitor just laughs sadly, looking my brother straight in the face.

You have a ghost problem, she says, and starts to hum a haunting song. I look at my brother and the hairs on his arms are stood straight, spine stretched as though he’s being pulled tense until he snaps, and he looks much more spooked now than I’ve ever seen him when confronted with the nightmares he faces in the flesh.

“How do you know that song?” He asks, and the visitor just smiles. “‘Yun yung kanta, ‘di ba? Nung matanda sa taas,”, she says, and my mother clutches the paper to her chest and nods, tells my brother to sleep in my room tonight.

That night, my brother doesn’t go home, and my mother sits in his room to wait for him to return. I walk out my room to go to the bathroom, and I see her bursting out of his door, fear in her eyes, telling me she heard the song.

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The next day, she and my brother head to our hometown, the paper taking them deep into the neck of its woods, and onto the doorstep of a faith healer.

They take one visit and come home with him in tow. Ka Jimmy, his name was, and with him was a ghost companion that only he could see named Lolo. He told my mother, prepare a feast. We’ll offer it to your ghosts and drive them away from your home, leave the food deep in the mountains so they can’t come back to haunt you. Make sure your son isn’t there when we do.

I go downstairs and find him just standing in our living room, staring at the portrait of my dead brother hanging on the wall.

I just blink at him and introduce myself, and Ka Jimmy looks back at me with a smile, and pauses for a few seconds to look at the space beside himself, before he nods.

“Pwede ba samahan mo ‘ko sa kwarto ng kuya mo,” he asks, and I nod, asking my mother if she could come with me, because I don’t want to be alone.

The four of us head upstairs to his room, me, my mother, Ka Jimmy and his ghost, and he whispers some words to Lolo as we walk through the halls. When we enter my brother’s bedroom, he stops at the doorway, looks at right at my mother and says, “ay. Andito po anak niyo. Yung nasa litrato sa baba.”

“Sa kotse po ba siya naaksidente?” he asks, and my mother can barely muster the voice to answer yes before he says, “ah, kita ko po sa kanya. Duguan po ulo niya, meron pang basag na salamin sa buhok.”

We walk past the bed to the balcony, and I try my hardest not to look at the place Ka Jimmy said my eldest brother was sitting. He looks at my mother and points at me, says, “nakatingin po sa kanya yung panganay niyo.”

My mother smiles and it doesn’t reach her eyes.

“Paborito niya po ‘yan e. Huli niyang nakita ang liit-liit pa.”

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Not for the first time, I realize that my brother isn’t the only one haunted.

The rest of our extended family comes up, carrying baskets of food and exactly thirteen bottles of water, setting it down on the balcony, the place in the house where the ghosts are the strongest.

We gather around the table, where Ka Jimmy says a prayer, and the air begins to grow cold. The hair on my arms stand on its end, and the invisible people come to feast.

Ka Jimmy asks us to give them privacy, and tells us to head downstairs while we wait for them to finish.

As we approach the living room, Ka Jimmy pauses, looks at my brother’s portrait again and says, “Inay. Yung panganay niyo po, gustong magpaalam.”

I think that’s the first time we all realized that if we want my brother’s ghosts to go away, we’ll have to face our own, too. And we’ll have to let them go.

One by one, Ka Jimmy calls us forward, and tells us what my eldest brother wants to say his goodbyes.

One by one, Ka Jimmy tells us.

“Una, si bunso. Niyayakap ka niya ngayon. Magpakabait ka raw.

Lagi ka raw ngumiti.”

I couldn’t feel his arms around me, but the air felt anything but cold. I close my eyes and lean my head forward, the way I used to when I was a kid and my brother took me in his arms, my forehead against his chest, the sound of his heartbeat the same as the sound of safety, the sound of home.

“Sunod, si Inay. Nakayakap din siya sa ‘yo. ‘Wag ka na raw malungkot. Ayaw ka na niya makitang umiyak.”

My mother, steady as the earth, stronger than mountains, crumples at the words, careening forward in the air but somehow not falling to

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the floor, as though an invisible force was holding her up and keeping her safe.

He looks for my father and our brother, but they weren’t home.

My mother made sure to get them out for the day, saying it was for the best, and it would be even if the absence of my brother wasn’t at Ka Jimmy’s request. That if they were here, it would destroy them, with their soft hearts and hollow eyes hidden behind the tall, imposing walls of their bodies, that they’re not strong enough to hold themselves up in a moment like this and keep going, even with the two of us there.

Ka Jimmy nods, and through his mouth comes my brother’s last request.

“Sunugin niyo na raw mga natitira niyang gamit, itago niyo na ‘yung mga picture, at pakawalan niyo na siya. Mabuhay na kayo nang walang bigat na tinatago. Hindi niyo na kailangan ng multo.” And just like that, he’s gone. And we’re still here, minutes later, years and years later, trying to accept that there’s no turning back.

Then, we return to the balcony, and see all the food is gone, bitten down to the bone, bottles of water empty and clattering on the floor.

We take what is left and load it into Ka Jimmy’s car, as he goes around the house and fills every corner with smoke, making sure no ghosts find their way back in.

Then, he leaves, bones in tow and ghosts right on his heels, and we’re left in our no longer haunted house to try and breathe again.

Instantly, the air feels lighter, ghosts of grief and remnants of their loneliness having been led away, hopefully to never return.

Moments after, my brother comes home. One foot in the door and he already tells us everything feels different. I look at him and can’t place how far away he is, but I know he’s there, present in a way I haven’t felt for years. Absently, I wonder if the weight wrapped around his neck is gone now, no longer locked in a vice grip, keeping him one step away from the rest of the world.

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“Good different?” I ask, and my brother shakes his head.

“Lonely,” he says, and looks at me, really looks at me for the first time in what feels like forever and doesn’t say more. He just heads up the stairs and locks himself in his room to be, for the first time, really, truly alone.

I stare at his back as he goes, and let myself sit alone for a few moments before I head up the stairs, humming a familiar, haunting song to myself, trying to figure out where I know it from, but it lingers in the back of my mind, unreachable, as I try to wade through the remaining smoke in my home.

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Malate Literary Folio

Insert Title Here

Text

ALEXANDREA REY

Save Yourself in Case of Emergency graphite on paper 2nd Place in Traditional Arts, 11th DLSU Annual Awards for Visual Arts

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Tomo XXXVIII Bilang 1

WILLIAM GEOFFREY LINDOG

Skin Taxi

Trigger Warning: Gore and disturbing content

Ah. You’re awake.

No, no. Stop crying. I know it hurts everywhere, but please relax.

It’ll all be over soon.This is all for your better good. Would you like some light? It can get very dark here, where the light from the Californian sun doesn’t reach. Water? Food? Don’t worry about your family. They know you’re somewhere else.

Hmm. You’ve… grown. Such a far cry from years before. Still the same business suit, albeit better fitting. Must have grown into it.

Motherhood hit you quite hard. A more rounded, gentler face, but still the same eyes. Piercing and fierce, but a lovely shade of blue. The same voice as well. Calm and stern. Direct to the point.

You’re still a lawyer, right? I checked. I knew your name and age. Nothing else. I needed to know more. Many things had changed when I was gone. I had to change the search queries. Smaller and smaller circles. Eliminate the degrees of separation between you and

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me. Look for your children, rosy-cheeked and innocent. Broadcasting every important event of your lives for the entire world to see. Look for your colleagues in the law firm. Filter the corporate drivel and look for the group photos, the ones where you were front and center.

You weren’t the kind of person to skip out on those kinds of things.

Look at graduation photos, at livestreams, at traffic data. Lovely court transcripts, depicting your climb up the corporate ladder.

You’ve moved up. Weren’t you the underdog all those years ago?

Little miss hotshot lawyer, tackling the scraps that the big dogs couldn’t chew through. You weren’t satisfied with just that, right? Common criminals were too simple for you. Civil cases became a bore. You wanted extravagant cases. The ones served by monkey suit waiters and in glass restaurants with the best views of the city. The taste of prime cut was too good to pass up, especially once you’ve gotten a taste for it.

Corporate relieved an itch that we uncomplicated vermin could not. So much money flying around in those courtrooms. Even outside.

In clandestine restaurant meetings, in hurried encounters just outside the halls of government. You’re off everywhere. Nobody will know you’re gone. Maybe you’re in New York, gallivanting it up in some mansion in Long Island. Silicon Valley, maybe. Everywhere except here, with me.

Do you want the chains off ? I’m afraid that’s not allowed.

My hands are shaky, you see. It’s from age. Lack of practice. Rusty.

I don’t want to slip and cut you in places that I don’t want. It ruins the quality. I have to put unsightly threads through it to make it look realistic. Douse you in chemicals. I don’t want to do that.

If anything, it’s your fault why we’re here right now. You performed a miracle that day. Connected all the dots I had unintentionally left behind. Holes in my formerly bulletproof alibis. Organized raids in my storage facilities, revealing my handiwork.

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Everyone knew me better as a hunter. An intrepid explorer of uncharted frontiers, tackling fantastic beasts that could kill a man in an instant. I wrote a book about it once. “Three Steps of a Successful Hunt”. I wasn’t much of a writer. I’m a much better artist. However, a lot of people don’t know that I hate that portion. Soaked in rain, crawling in the mud… do you think any sane person enjoys that? No! Of course not. Hunting is only a means to my end. The aftermath.

Deftly weaving the knife, carving out the innards and separating the carcass into parts. Stewed and boiled, pan fried and roasted over open fire. Nothing was to be wasted. The skin, although inedible, could be used for insulation and clothing. Camouflage and scent masking, if the need arose. Antlers and hooves, skull bones and select body parts turned into monuments of a hunt well done. Eternally, chemically, frozen in time. It’s very fun, once you get the hang of it.

There’s an artistry to that craft, one that is slowly being lost to time.

It’s become stale. How many leopards can you skin before going insane? How many elephant heads can you mount on some rich person’s wall? They all blend together. Much like your cases, I presume.

How many times can you weasel your way out of tax evasion? Sexual harassment cases? Doesn’t it drive you crazy? It is in stagnation that decay starts to form. Did you know that evolution is a sign of life?

Without it, we’d be dead. In a few days, in months, or even years.

I started with chimps. There isn’t much difference between them and humans, if I were to be honest with you. Same skeletal structure.

Same tears in their eyes as I slice them open. Things get a little more complicated up the evolutionary ladder. Why are babies so fragile?

Children aren’t any better. I was just getting the hang of prepubescents before you rushed my artistic debut. I wasn’t ready yet! I could’ve learned how to skin adults, but you sent me to that prison to rot.

I love California. Who wouldn’t? Look at the people around you. White skins. Black skins. Artificially-tanned skins. Yellow skins.

Tattooed, disfigured, burned. Where else could I find such variety in canvases? So many conditions to consider, so many challenges just 62

Skin Taxi

waiting to be solved. That’s why I came back. I always leave nothing wasted — not even those considered as such by society. Don’t you think they belong on pedestals like these instead of the streets of your hallowed city? They’re harmless. Hollowed out, imbued with a new purpose — one they can fulfill to the fullest. I preserved their last moments in time, with chemicals and glass replacements to immortalize them.

Not you, however. You deserve better.

Do you know how much effort I took to bring you here? Your life was… different. I couldn’t just bring you out of it, like what I did thirty years ago. You had to leave it yourself to make it look legitimate.

Or I could make you do so.

I had to start small. Little nudges here and there. Little appetizers on your windowsill — birds, cats, dogs. Envelopes in all shapes and sizes, slotted through the tiniest holes your house could provide. Your house isn’t a home anymore. Small interactions, slowly building up in magnitude. Did you know your kids call me uncle? I’m a colleague. A caretaker. Erstwhile night guard, watching your children sleep in their neat little beds. Documenting your every move.

I increase the magnitude. Hourly text messages and calls. Nothing inappropriate, I swear. How have you been? Where are you right now? You always hung up! Also, you need to work on your replies. “Please stop calling me.” “I’m going to call the cops on you.” If it weren’t any of those, you hung up. Still, I feel it. You’re close to breaking. Do you think the policemen outside your house could stop me? The security theater — the hourly rotations, the police dogs, the barely-concealed surveillance vans — useless, a waste of taxpayer money.

All this for one statue? No. The maestros before me made beautiful things. Schools of rabbits and kitten tea parties. I’ll surpass them. But I need others. Your kids. Your husband. Friends and family.

Everyone you’ve encountered, whether on the street.

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But to do this, I need you. It’ll look slightly ill-fitting. Proportions aren’t up to snuff, and alterations won’t just cut it this time. Still. I know it can work. You’ll live on. Everything that you’ve worked hard to accomplish in your life will still be there.

Now, hold still.

It’s time for me to work.

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Malate Literary Folio

DANA BEATRICE TAN

Stand By

3rd Place in Digital Art, 11th DLSU Annual Awards for Visual Arts 65

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DANA BEATRICE TAN

Obsession digital art

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Malate Literary Folio

DANA ISABELLE VILLANO

The Arrival 3rd Place in Short Story, 36th DLSU Annual Awards for Literature

Trigger Warning: Sexual violence

67, 68, 69.

Leaning forward, I stop at 69 and begin again. I’ve counted the number of tiles in the nearly empty diner three times by now to amuse myself. The last time I was here, this restaurant was packed with people. Now, though, I’ve barely seen anyone I know. Everyone must’ve left town - just like I did six years ago.

I sit back again impatiently, tapping my foot against the hard marble floor. “Fuck,” I sigh loudly.

To my left, the elderly couple pauses mid-bite to stare angrily at me. I plaster on a big toothy smile and wave back at them. The waitress – Amanda, her name tag reads – circles back again to my table, probably to tell me off for disrupting her guests’ nice evenings.

“Sir, would you like to have your dinner served already?”

“For the last time, I said I’ll wait. I’ll let you know if I need anything.”

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ago.

I glance down at my watch. She should have been here two hours

Amanda shakes her head sympathetically and walks away. I can almost hear her thoughts – must’ve been stood up by his date. Poor guy.

Oh, if only it were that simple.

I look at the dreary rain beginning to fall outside the window. It was inconvenient to have to drive all the way here, but she wouldn’t meet me anywhere else. At this point, I was really just hoping to get this over with. After all, the more idle time on my hands, the more time I had to think. And thinking meant going back to some dark places that I didn’t particularly relish revisiting. The thought of meeting her face to face, after almost six years with virtually no contact, made the bile rise up in my stomach.

But it had been a tiring day for me, and my eyelids were getting heavy. With nothing to take up my thoughts, my mind began to wander.

I still remember the first time it happened. I was twelve at the time. I remember thinking that her vagina was icky.

That was the start. Whenever we lay down in bed together, she’d tell me to suck her nipples. She’d tell me to put a finger inside of her.

She’d tell me to go deeper.

Never tell anyone else about this, she told me. It’ll be our little secret. Secrets were fun and exciting at the time, so I didn’t mind very much. Having a secret was something only grown-ups did – and I did so want to be grown up. I sure thought I was so grown up.

I told myself that I was enjoying it – and I was. The sex was great.

But something wasn’t right. Sex was supposed to be this mindblowing, magical phenomenon that pushed you right over the edge of emotion and drove you crazy with wild ecstasy.

Why, then, did I feel so numb?

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The Arrival

I didn’t know what I was supposed to feel, but I’m pretty sure I was supposed to feel something.

I never brought it up with anyone in the fear that my lack of feeling was simply a sign that I was damaged. I moved away at eighteen, buried her memory in the deepest recesses of my mind, and tried to go on with the rest of life. But someone must have picked up on a trace, some lingering scent of her on me - or else yesterday would never have happened.

Yesterday, someone came to see me. Private Investigator Rory, she said her name was. She was working on a case, and would I mind if she asked me a few questions? I only said yes because it would be rude to say otherwise.

I didn’t like her questions very much. They reminded me too much of the things I had worked hard to forget. But she was sweet and seemed genuinely interested in what I had to say. I don’t really know why, but I decided to trust her. I liked her enough; I wanted to help her out.

So I told her what I knew – the barest details, at least. I omitted bits and pieces (well, more than that) here and there: things she didn’t need to know, things I wanted to keep hidden, at least for the time being. The PI never interrupted me once while I was telling the story.

“Have you ever told anyone else about this?” she asked when I was done.

“Never. And I don’t plan on that changing anytime soon.”

“I hate to have to ask you this, then, but would you consider witnessing in the trial? To attest to the background of the suspect?”

“Definitely not.”

“You weren’t the only one, Sir. His name was Tommy.”

She shows me his picture. He’s a fully grown man, but his eyes remain empty. In my eyes, he looks just like me.

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“His wife found him dead in the garage last week. Suicide. We have reason to believe that the suspect... seduced him, too.”

“Raped. He was raped. Don’t call something what it isn’t.”

“With all due respect, Sir. I meant no offense.”

She stands up to leave.

“I’m sorry for having taken up so much of your time,” she says.

But she pauses by the doorstep.

“You do understand though, Sir, that because the legal age of consent here is twelve, I’m afraid you don’t have much of a case anymore. But Tommy does. He was younger when it happened.”

I can feel my blood beginning to boil as I sit there in silence “You could stop this from happening to anyone else, ever again.

Just help me put this through court,” she pleaded.

I never want anyone else to go through what I had to go through.

“My case happened a long time ago, just like yours,” she added regretfully. “No witnesses. It would be extremely difficult to gather evidence otherwise. With the victim already dead, there’s no one to testify.”

Things were looking bleak. It was her word against mine, unless – unless I could turn her own words against her, I thought to myself with a jolt. I could extract a confession from her. She’d want to talk to me, maybe. Hopefully. Well, it was worth a shot, at least.

I ignored the pang in my gut that mysteriously emerged at the thought of seeing her again.

“I’ll give you a call if I ever change my mind.”

“I guess that’s the best I can hope for.”

As Rory was leaving, she turned to me sadly and went, “Sir, it’s not your fault. It never was. You know that, right?”

I always thought it was my fault. It never occurred to me otherwise.

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The Arrival

I look her up on social media as soon as the PI leaves. I find her profile; my finger hovers over the phone icon tentatively. I wasn’t so sure she’d want to meet me again. Hell, I wasn’t so sure I wanted to meet her again. But I think of Tommy, and of how unsure and afraid and anxious he must have been while he was on top of her, and I grit my teeth and dial her number. I don’t expect her to pick up.

She picks up. I catch my breath. Her voice is breathy and harsh and raw at the edges – just as I remembered.

“Hello, who is this?”

“Hello yourself.”

I hear a hitch in her breath, and I know. She recognizes me.

“Joseph? Is that really you, Joseph?”

“Yes, it’s me.”

“How long has it been?”

How does she sound the same? I had to change so much of myself to accommodate her when she was there, and then again when she suddenly wasn’t. And yet, her voice stayed the same.

Something else is building up inside of me – anger. I need to end the call quickly or it’ll show.

“Too long. I need to see you again.”

“Moving a little fast, aren’t we Joseph?”

“A little fast? Aren’t you remarried now?”

“Oh, that’s all for formality’s sake, darling. Let’s just say we have a mutual understanding. Nothing personal.”

“Thank God for that.”

“I’m so unhappy, Joseph. Won’t you come see me?”

Well, that was surprisingly easy.

“Of course. Where?”

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“Where else? At Tommy’s.”

It was our favorite diner - the one where we would head to after all my football games. There was this unisex bathroom in which she had wanked me off once. She had been trying to apologize for pulling me out from the team. That was probably the first and last time we had done anything in public – too risky.

Was that where she brought Tommy, too? Tommy at Tommy’s.

She would have been the type to think that was hilarious.

“That’s too far away from me. Can’t we -” “No.” I take after her, then. Whenever I didn’t want to do something she told me to, she’d tell me off.Slap me hard. Lock my arms in place.

Say I ought to “man up.” She’d make me do what she wanted anyway – and I’d oblige.

I guess I must’ve really loved her at some point, huh?

“Whatever, your call.”

“It was yours, really. But whatever.”

There’s an ugly pause.

“I’ve always loved you. You know that, right?” she says suddenly.

How was it possible to care for a person so deeply and despise every fiber of their being at the same time?

“I love you too. See you tomorrow.”

And now, here I was. She was now late by – hang on – three hours. With every passing minute, I feel more and more like I’m about to throw up what little I have left in my stomach. It’s closing time at the diner; the sympathetic waitress from earlier is now shooting me a dirty look. A few minutes more and I might actually have to call this off. The thought relieves me - and then I mentally slap myself.

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Did I really think I could pull this off ?

I steel my nerves. Have a small sip of water. Adjust the hidden recording device in the collar of my jacket. Straighten up in my chair.

Nothing says “typical Saturday night out” quite like heading home to go out on a date with your rapist. Right. Okay. This is normal. Take a deep breath. Pull yourself together.

Behind me, I can make out the tinny chime of the bell hanging from the door. I don’t have to turn around - I hear the clacking of her heels as she comes closer.

She’s here.

She takes her seat right next to me, still not looking directly at me.

She calls out to the waitress behind the counter.

“Darling – Amanda, is it? Fetch me a drink, will you? I’m parched.”

The waitress raises her eyebrows at her. She probably can’t believe her her eyes – after all, she must’ve thought my date was non-existent by now. She shakes herself from her stupor and hurries over.

“We close in 10 minutes,” Amanda says surlily, handing her a glass.

For a fraction of a second, as she reaches for the drinks, her arm lingers next to mine. Her presence, her physical closeness to me after so long, sends shivers down my spine. Nearly touching her is almost more than I can stand.

I hate her for it, for still making me feel anything for her. After all she’s done to me.

She finally turns to face me. She flashes a small smile: hesitant, hopeful.

“Hello, Joseph. It’s been a while.”

The noose tightens. Got you now, you sick fuck.

“You could say that. Good to see you again, Mother.”

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CHAUNNE-IRA EZZLERAIN MASONGSONG

Core

3rd Place in Photography, 11th DLSU Annual Awards for Visual Arts

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my lungs are beside the heart.

Fertile young boys like me

the the nation

watch the flag inside us from the flagpole. We were picked to breathe hard and pull our love through our hands.

Hail inhalation. Exhaust exhalation.

I was elated to be desperate

(The rhythm) (behind our world)

with you, to hear the banner

(left unnamed)

struggle in your windpipe. I kissed your sternum—the delicate century between our tired nation and hymn.

nation

beating new conscripts. The recent secession left us in the shape of our flag, two brilliant blades of imprecision. They spoke of the nation together above scissors of voices—the center partition working through us. I salute something vital from the split air. I know what quiets assembly. Disassembly. Marching over the tight chest of a field. Right over left. My soldier hand over your heart.

RIGEL RUEL PORTALES

My lungs are the nation 75

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KENT HARVEY INGEL

Take a peek 2nd Place in Photography, 11th DLSU Annual Awards for Visual Arts 76

Malate Literary Folio

KATRINA MARIE AFURONG

Tatay Alfredo

2nd Place in Photography, 11th DLSU Annual Awards for Visual Arts

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FRANCIS NATHE OMAÑA

Sinking Deep Underwater 2nd Place in Digital Art, 11th DLSU Annual Awards for Visual Arts

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LAUREN ANGELA CHUA

Apps and Downs 3rd Place sa Tula, 36th DLSU Annual Awards for Literature

Netflix

“Time for Netflix!”

Sabi ko sa sarili nang matapos ko nang gawin ang lahat ng dapat kong tapusin. Hinanda ko na ang sitsiryang kunwari, popcorn at isinalin ang tubig na kunwari, softdrink.

Pumili ako nang “Ba-dum...” Sabi ng Netflix. sampung minuto pumili ng papanoorin, halos series at movies. ring hindi makapili sa dami ng na lamang dahil Nagpasya akong The Good Place gawain sa school matagal-tagal na rin akong naghirap sa naka-eengganyo ang “Everything is fine.” na nakasulat sa green background ni Kristen Bell. Itinaas ko ang mga paa sa sofa, pinindot ko ng remote para mag-play ang series na kasabik-sabik.

At bumungad sa akin si Netflix: “Please update your payment details.” Kinuha ko ang cellphone ko at tiningnan ko ang laman ng GCash ko, “P23.50” sabi ng available balance. Bad trip, kaya pumunta na lang ako sa Youtube para magpatugtog ng music, ginawang Sugarfree nonstop sitsirya, at aking pulutan ang tirang ang tubig.

Di In-imagine na alak Siguro’y ganito sa na rin masama. the good place. rin naman doon

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Sheets Gusto ko na talagang bumalik sa bagong palit kong sheets, Nakasandal at nakadantay lang sa mala-ulap na mga unan At nakayakap sa akin ang makapal na kumot Habang bumubuga nang bumubuga ang aircon.

Ayokong harapin ang panibagong excel sheet Na kailangan na namang i-balance ang debit at credit.

Ni hindi ko nga mabalanse ang acads, org, sleeping schedule At katamaran ko, dadagdag pa ito Sa mga nakapatong sa ulo’t balikat ko.

Hindi puwedeng madapa o matisod, Dahil paniguradong uulitin na naman ang lahat Mula sa simula.

Panibago na namang sheet, Ngunit doble na ang bigat.

Dahil pabigat nang pabigat ang lahat Kapag bitbit-bitbit ang mga hilahil nang paulit-ulit.

Habang mga balikat, likod at kasu-kasuan ko’y Pasakit na rin nang pasakit.

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Notion To get you in motion, Hindi puwedeng titig lang sa Notion.

Todo dagdag ka sa To-do, Wala namang nata-transfer sa Doing.

At ang malala, wala ring nasa Done.

Umpisahan mong paisa-isa Mula alas siyete ng umaga, Pagkatapos ay magpahinga Pagpatak ng ala una y media.

Ilagay mo na rin sa listahan ang e-numan Na matagal nang inaawit ng barkada (at lalamunan).

Baka kaya hindi ka makakilos Ay dahil sa sobrang pagod, Nakalimutan mong Ihinga ang problema Sa huntahan ng tropa.

Ngayon, kung done ka na Sa pag-uupdate ng friendships, Baka kaya mo nang muling Harapin ang mga hilahil sa screen Nang may tapang na sabihing: “Sa wakas, to-do list ko’y cleared!”

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Tetris

Siksik araw-

siksik araw ang skedyul na kailangang manipulahin upang kumasya sa kakarampot na tirang pampahinga. Ikot- ikot, unat-unat, hikab-hikab ‘pag may time. Kaya lang minsan, parang bumibilis ang dagdag ng gawain.

Nagugulo ang plano, nawawala ka sa f o c u s.

Puwedeng-puwede ka namang mag - p a u s e. pero dahil makulit ka’t hindi mapakali, pipigilin mong sapilitan ang iyong hikab. Kailangang ‘di maggameover dahil gusto mong maging proud ka sa sarili mo kapag a l l c l e a r e d na ang requirements mo at na-beat mo pa ang iyong personal high score. Maipagyayabang mong “pinaghirapan ko ito kaya mataas ang nakuha ko!” at dahil sa iyong tagumpay, deserve mo ring I-pause at i-pahinga ang mga mata at pumikit, makinig ng music habang pinapangarap at pinaghahandaan ang susunod mong personal best.

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GDocs Doc, may mainam bang gamot o bitamina upang kusa mong mabasa ang iniisip ko’t maisulat nang maayos at komprehensibo ang mga ideyang matagal nang nananahan sa loob ko, ngunit hindi maisulatsulat? Mamayang umaga na ang pasahan nitong papel, at hindi pa kami tapos sa pagsusulat. Baka nga nakatulog na rin ang mga kagrupo ko sa pagod na dala ng iba pang asignatura.

Baka may antibiotic kang mairerekomenda sa mabilisang paggaling ng burn out ko? Nawawalan na kasi ng sigla ang dating kasipagan ko.

Sintomas na yata ito ng ilang linggong pagtunganga at hindi paggalaw.

Nakakakaba, baka lumala at tuluyang maparalisa.

Bukas ko na siguro itutuloy ito. Gigising na lang nang maaga upang punan ang mga bahaging kulang.

Ay! Biglang nanumbalik na pala ang lakas ko. Dumating na sa rin pala ang crush ko rito, Doc! Iisang file ang tinititigan ng aming mga mata sa oras na ito. Pumunta ang cursor ko sa kinalalagyan ng cursor niya, at para na ring magkahawak ang aming mga kamay.

Kulang lang pala ako sa inspirasyon, kaya ngayo’y bumalik na ang ligalig. Ngunit ang masaklap, puro ligalig at sandamakmak na kilig lamang ang nagbalik, nawaglit na ang mga ideya’t nalimutan ang mga iniisip na isulat kanina. Sana’y masungkit ko muli sa kawalan.

Salamat, Doc! Sa gitna ng madaling araw na ito, kay dali rin palang lumigalig ng puso kong akala ko’y pagod na sa katitibok.

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PAULA BIANCA MARAÑA

MISSED CONNECTIONS 3rd Place sa Tula, 36th DLSU Annual Awards for Literature

I. Ang Huling Gabi INT. MOTEL – GABI Nakatitig KA sa kisame imbis na sa KANYA. Sa kumukurap na bumbilya imbis na sa nakapikit na mata. Sa tumutuklap na pintura kaysa sa katawan sa ilalim ng kumot.

Hindi mo mapigilang isipin ang damit na pupulutin sa sahig, na humalo sa nakakalat na lihim na lumaya sa iyong bibig.

Isang lapat ng labi ay sapat na para bumuka ang nakatikom na bunganga. Kasing bilis ng pag-amin ang paghubad ng damit, at ng natitira pang alinlangan.

Hindi maitatanggi ng katawan ang katotohanan. Dama ito sa gumagapang na daliri, sa laway na kumakayat sa gilid ng bibig. Isang tingin sa mata ay may katumbas na pagtunaw.

Nasa mata ang lahat ng pagnanasa. Sa kamay matatagpuan ang bakas na iniwan ng init, ng pagtunaw na naidulot ng pagkapit.

Ngunit pagkatapos ng pagtalik, nagbago ang eksena.

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Nanumbalik ang takot na makita ang pagkahubad sa labas ng kama. Ang katotohanang nakabalandra sa bawat galaw ng katawan, sa bawat tingin sa mata.

Kaya tumayo ka na lang. Pinalitan ang katawan ng unan.

Ang mga damit ay pinulot, kasama ang sikretong binawi at nilunok muli.

Pinatay ang kumukurap na bumbilya. Kinumutan ng dilim ang iiwanang katawan.

Lumingon ka.

Sinara mo ang pinto sa kanya.

WAKAS

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II PANAWAGAN para sa isang babae na may sumusunod na katangian: (PAALALA: Kailangan kumpleto, walang labis o kulang.)

- May maiksing buhok at mas maiksing pasensya.

Tumitikwas sa dulo sa dalas ng paglabas ng usok sa tenga.

- Papalipad na ang pilik sa paulit-ulit na pag-ikot ng mata, na ginuhitan ng hindi pantay na pakpak.

- Kapag tumatawa’y mahilig manapak.

Ang bawat hampas ay lumalagapak.

- Itim na buhok at itim na damit at pulang labi, at pulang mantsa sa puting punda na naiiwan pagkabangon sa umaga.

- Nagbabasa pa rin ng dyaryo sa umaga, kaya sigurado akong ito’y mababasa niya.

Kapag nakikita mo ang sarili mo sa mga nabanggit na katangian, o kapag sa tingin mo kilala mo ang inilarawan ng panawagan, pakitawagan o text ang numero na ito:

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III UNKNOWN NUMBER

!

Ito ang mga bagay na hindi nasabi:

! ! !

Madaling taguan ang bagay na maaaring makadulot ng sakit.

Madaling takbuhan ang bagay bago ito maging dahilang manatili.

Sa sandali na tinalikuran kita, naramdaman ko ang bigat ng bawat tapak.

!

Nag-iwan ng bakas ang paa sa lupa, at ng daan papunta sa pinagtaguan.

! !

Hindi ka sumunod, at hindi ko rin inasahan.

Nasa lupa pa rin ang bakas ng aking tapak.

!

Hindi ko alam kung pwede ko pang bawiin ang landas na tinahak.

!

Hindi ko alam kung handa akong harapin ang nasa dulo ng daan.

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! !

Ang alam ko lang ay nawala na ang takot.

At sana, pagbalik ko sa harap ng iyong pinto, sagutin mo ang aking katok.

ADVISORY: Wala kang load.

P0.06 na lang. Kung gusto mo pang sabihin lahat ng sasabihin mo, may mga paraan na magawa ito.

Gusto mo bang ituloy?

OO

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IV CORRESPONDENCE Isinalin at ibinura mula sa liham ni Vita Sackville-West kay Virginia Woolf

PARA SA’YO

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AT PARA SA KANYA:

Source: Sackville-West, V, Virginia Woolf, Louise A. DeSalvo, and Mitchell A. Leaska. The Letters of Vita Sackville-West to Virginia Woolf. , 1985. Print.

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V MISSED CONNECTIONS >>> CRAIGSLIST >>> PRIDE Huli kitang nakita kasama ang isang estranghero, sa gitna ng dagsaan ng tao. Nasa kalagitnaan ka ng gulo, nakataas ang kamao, nakaupo sa balikat ng isa pang babaeng nakakapit nang mahigpit sa iyong mga binti. Nangingibabaw ka sa ‘yong simpleng itsura, itim na buhok, itim na damit, bahagharing nakapinta sa labi at pisngi. Bahagharing nakapalibot sa bawat tabi.

Tiningnan kitang tumingala sa langit, at parang nakilala ka ng araw. Kinumutan ka nito ng liwanag.

Huli kitang nakitang nakabalot sa dilim. Pinatay ko ang kumukurap na ilaw at nabuhay ulit ito sa iyo.

Bago pa ko makalapit at makabalik sa ‘yo, nakababa ka na sa balikat at nakayakap na sa estranghero. Nakakapit ang babae nang mahigpit sa bewang mo, at nag-iwan ng bahagharing bakas ang iyong labi sa puti ng kanyang pisngi.

Naalala ko bigla ang pulang mantsa na naiwan sa puting punda nung huli kitang nakita. Ang pulang marka na iniwan ng bibig mo sa balat ko na hindi ko pa rin mabura.

Lumingon ka.

Hindi mo ako nakita.

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CHAUNNE-IRA EZZLERAIN MASONGSONG

No cars, just unicorns

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ADIELLA SZELOU DOMINGO

Sanciangco 2nd Place in Poetry, 36th DLSU Annual Awards for Literature

Sanctuary Maybe you knew what you were doing when you told me I could find sanctuary within these walls. Maybe not. I wanted to believe you, but my time and yours is what we’ll always have and won’t; words are nothing but a paper bridge of declaration, and all we are, are two halfdrawn silhouettes treading the border of the in-between.

My shadow only lingers, but never stays. Every word uttered within these walls is the body and flesh dipped in truth, and my throat has long dried up from drinking too much wine.

You were just too kind to offer. I was just too kind to refuse.

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Sweet Substance Just because I like the smell of rain doesn’t mean I’d dance in it until my teeth chatter. Even tiny droplets can prickle my skin and pile up until I drown.

But you wear and walk it like a brand new heroin, and know I was likely to relapse.

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Strings We swore a solemn oath that strings should not be cut, and I stood by and stuck to my side believing that angels wouldn’t lie. It turns out, the gap that separates the skies and seas is merely an illusion. There is no such truth, only a disguise of hoods and halos; wings are but a prop, the sun is but a blinding light.

When I am hanging off the edge of a cliff, I claw and climb like I am seeing the end.

There is no end, just a tattered string.

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Saint and/or the Sinner You were no saint, just someone who wears a cross around his neck and holds it towards the sky. With every step you take down the aisle, the bell’s clanging obscures the fragmented cries of the muses you left behind.

You were no saint, just a sculpture inspired by the Romans. When heaven decided to bestow gifts upon the earth, the dust settled beneath your soles, to the tip of your bridge, to the top of your crown.

You were no saint, but my eyes still sought the angle that painted you as one. My fingers swept and scratched the letters left scattered at your doorstep, these words which wear a uniform were a mockery to the blotches of ink that had dried, dripping down.

But there were crinkled areas where our bloodied fingerprints laid bare... why? A sinner never weeps over a stained dagger in their pocket.

Why? A sinner never keeps a victim’s taped-up picture in their wallet.

Why? Perhaps, you were no saint, you were no sinner; but a soul lost in translation.

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Sanciangco When flags are raised in the sea of red, swim to the surface and try to spot the street with the green vines and say, this is Sanciangco, right?

If anyone asks where the smoke comes from, go to the tower that sounds the bell at Sundays, smell the insenso, follow the hand that holds the chain, look, just how beautiful you are, right.

When someone is fond of the way a young god mouths his prayer, let them think of you, think of the way your lips brushed over my skin, oh, but this is a sin, right?

If rumors are all you worry, don’t fret, others streets are far from here, quote the one who wears the thorns like his loosen robes, chanting, love is never wrong, right?

When someone tells with wonder the tale of two halves and praises the miracle of the divine, 104

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add pressure on my chest, ignore the dripping red, close my eyes as I think of Sanciangco, and say, right.

This street doesn’t need a sign.

If anyone gets lost, then they don’t know. They don’t know how often I scraped my knee, bruised my arm from tripping, chasing you, cutting my lip, while you offered me a band-aid.

Pain taught me I wasn’t dreaming, right.

This must be real, right?

Sanciangco is my home now, right? right.

Hear, this is the promise of security listen, this is the vow of eternity, right?

You are a samaritan, right?

And they never lie, right? right?

right?

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ALEXIA ROMAN

How long do I have to wait?

3rd Place in Digital Art, 11th DLSU Annual Awards for Visual Arts

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LAUREN ANGELA CHUA

Tyler at Casper 3rd Place sa Sanaysay, 36th DLSU Annual Awards for Literature

K

ung nakakapagsalita ang mga aso, susumbatan kaya ako ng mga aso ko o sasabihin nilang naiintindihan naman nila ako?

Unang aso ko si Tyler. Trese o katorse ako noon, kakalipat lang namin sa Laguna. Bahay-bakasyunan lang noon ang bahay namin doon. Kayâ lang, kinailangan naming lumipat muna. May iilan naman akong kakilala na mga kapitbahay pero hindi pa kami ganoon ka-close.

Naglalaro kami tuwing hapon, nakikikain sila ng meryenda o hapunan sa bahay namin pero syempre, hindi naman nila ako kinukumusta sa umaga bago pumasok sa paaralan at sa hapon pag-uwi. Hindi naman nila binabantayan ang buong pamilya namin kapag gabi. Hindi sila katulad ni Tyler at ni Casper magmahal.

Si Tyler, kulay puti at itim. Purebred Chihuahua siya kayâ maliit at malikot. Bigay siya sa akin ni Tito Benzie, pinsan ng lolo ko. Dahil for some reason, noong binigay siya sa amin ay LSS ako sa kantang ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ na kanta ni Bonnie Tyler, Tyler ang ipinangalan ko sa kaniya. Si Casper naman, kulay brown at puti. Binigay naman siya sa amin ng kapatid ng lola ko, hindi ko alam kung saan siya talagang 107

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napulot. Halo-halo na yata siya ng breed ng Chow Chow, St. Bernard at Labrador. Casper ang ipinangalan ko sa kaniya dahil gusto kong parehong “-er” ang dulo ng mga pangalan nila, at saka may napanood akong blind audition sa The Voice noon at ang ganda ng boses niya, Casper ang pangalan kaya iyon na lang din ang ipinangalan ko sa aso ko.

Sa pamilya namin, wala talagang mahilig mag-alaga ng hayop. Kayâ noong ibinigay sa amin si Tyler, parang ayaw pa nila Papa, lolo ko.

Dudumi raw kasi sa bahay. Pero nakumbinsi rin sila nila Tito Benzie dahil mainam daw na may aso sa bahay, iwas magnanakaw. Kayâ noong inuwi na namin sa Laguna si Tyler, maliit pa siya. Mukha pa nga siyang pusa kayâ medyo natatakot pa ako. Pero noong napalagay na rin sa amin, lumikot na! Hindi ako makaupo sa rocking chair dahil baka mamaya, naiipit na pala siya. Pero kahit anong kulit ni Tyler, mahal na mahal namin siya ni Mama.

Noong dumating naman si Casper, napakatapang ni Tyler! Walang tigil ang pagtahol niya habang buhat ko si Casper. Para bang sinasabi niyang teritoryo niya ito at hindi puwedeng may makahati siya sa atensyon namin. Isang beses nga, nabitawan ko si Casper dahil nagulat ako sa tahol ni Tyler, buti na lang hindi nabalian! Kaya naman si Casper, natakot na sa kaniya. Pero kalaunan, mas lumaki pa si Casper. Halos 4x ng size ni Tyler! Kaya friends na sila, siguro si Tyler naman ang natakot sa palaki nang palaki na si Casper. Buti na lang naging magkaibigan sila, sila lang kasi pala ang magiging magkaramay hanggang huli.

Noong nasa amin pa sila, pakiramdam ko ligtas ako. Pakiramdam ko, lagi akong may kaibigan. Pakiramdam ko, may maganda pa rin sa araw ko kapag pinapahimas nila ang mga ulo o tiyan nila sa akin tapos ay wawasiwas ang mga buntot nila na parang electric fan. Alam din siguro nila na ayokong dinidilaan ako kaya kapag nakapantalon ako o naka-uniform, saka lang nila dinidilaan ang damit ko, hindi sumasagi sa balat ko.

Pero inaamin ko naman. Hindi ako ang kasama nila sa veterinarian kapag binabakunahan sila, hindi ako ang kasama kapag ginugupitan sila ng balahibo at kuko. Ni hindi nga ako ang nagpapaligo o nagpapakain 108

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sa kanila. May Asthma rin ako, kayâ hindi ko sila katabing matulog, ni hindi nga yata sila nakatapak sa kuwarto ko. Pakiramdam ko, hindi ako tunay na kaibigan sa kanila.

Kaya noong bumalik kami sa Maynila para mag-Senior High School ako, hindi raw puwede ang mga alagang hayop sa condo namin (kahit na ang dami naman naming kapitbahay na may mga aso at pusa). Wala na naman akong magawa, syempre ang lolo at lola ko kasi ang nagdesisyon. Binigay nila sa isa sa mga umuupa sa amin si Tyler at Casper, mas maaalagaan daw nila Mang Roger ang mga aso.

Nagmakaawa pa nga akong sana ay sa kamag-anak na lang namin sa Cavite, kina Tito Robert na lang sana, dahil alam kong mabubuti silang tao at hindi mapapahamak ang mga aso ko kung nasa kanila.

Hindi ko alam kung tinanong nga nila Papa sa kanila kung gusto bang kunin sina Tyler at Casper pero mukhang naipangako na yata nila ang mga aso sa umuupa bago pa man hingan ako ng opinyon. Kayâ naman, bago sila ibigay doon, grabe ang pamamaalam ko sa mga aso ko. Doon kami sa laundry area para hindi ako masabihan na OA nila Papa. Kinakausap ko ang mga aso ko, nangangako akong babalikan ko sila at kukunin kapag nakumbinsi ko na sina Papa at Dada, aking lola.

Parang naiintindihan ng mga aso yung mga sinasabi ko, kaya salitan silang parang yumayakap sa akin. At hindi ko sila sinita noong araw na iyon dahil mami-miss ko talaga sila. Para akong nanay na magaabroad, ganito ba ang pakiramdam nila kapag iiwan ang mga anak nang walang kasiguraduhan kung kailan makakabalik?

Sabik na sabik ako kapag umuuwi kami ng Laguna. Nire-request ko kasing dumaan muna kami kina Mang Roger para bisitahin ko sina Tyler at Casper. Bawat bisita ko sa kanila, parang palala nang palala ang itsura nila. Kinuwe-kuwestiyon ko kung naaalagaan nga ba talaga sila o ginagawa na lang talaga silang mga guwardiya? Mahahaba na ang mga kuko nila. Noong isang beses, naabutan kong pilay ang isang paa ni Tyler. Awang-awa ako, nakikita kong nahihirapan siyang tumayo, lumakad at tumakbo. Pero pagkakitang-pagkakita niya sa akin, ang bilis pa rin niya, parang hindi iniinda yung sakit ng paa niya. Ang sabi pa nga ni Mang Roger, ilang araw na raw hindi kumakain si Tyler mula

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nang mapilay dahil nasagasaan yata. Noong araw na iyon, galít na galít ako. Parang halos magmakaawa na ako kay Papa na isama pauwi si Tyler at Casper. Pero syempre, hindi siya pumayag. Humagulgol ako hanggang sa makauwi kami sa Maynila.

May isa pa ngang beses, nagulat ako dahil si Papa at Dada pa ang nagyaya na puntahan si Tyler at Casper gayong hindi naman nila ito binibisita talaga. Kasama namin si Ate Mayet, kasambahay namin.

Buong biyahe namin papunta kina Mang Roger, nagpaparinig na si Ate Mayet na kesyo napakalaking tulong daw ng mga aso sa mga magnanakaw, napaka-ingay daw ni Tyler, siguradong matatakot ang mga magnanakaw. Hindi ko pinansin, baka kasi na-miss lang din niya ang mga aso. Pero pagdating namin doon, aba ipinagpaalam na kay Mang Roger na isasama na ni Ate Mayet papuntang probinsya nila si Tyler! Ni hindi man lang sinabi sa akin, mabuti na lang at narinig ko ang pag-uusap nila! Galít na galít na naman ako. Parang binabalewala lang nila ang nararamdaman ko. At higit sa lahat, binabalewala lang nila ang nararamdaman ng mga aso ko! Hindi pa sila kailanman nagkahiwalay, magkapatid sila kahit iba ang mga magulang at breed nila! Kung ibibigay pa siya kay Ate Mayet, bukod sa malayo ang Mindanao at hindi ko madadalaw ang mga aso ko, mukhang hindi naman niya aalagaan sina Tyler at Casper. Gusto lang niyang gawing guwardiya, doorbell kapag may bisita, panakot sa magnanakaw. Kayâ wala silang nagawa, humagulgol na ako at talagang pinakiusapan si Ate Mayet na hindi ko kakayanin kung ilalayo pa lalo ang mga aso ko. Iyon ang kaunaunahang pagkakataon na naawa sila sa akin kaya pinagbigyan nila ako pero humahagulgol pa rin ako hanggang sa makauwi kami sa Maynila.

Hindi naman ako iyakin talaga, pero pagdating sa kanila, parang laging automatic ang tulo ng luha ko.

Iyon na rin ang huling kíta ko sa mga aso ko bago mag-pandemya.

Pakiramdam ko, animal cruelty din ang iwanan ang mga alagang hayop pagkatapos ka nilang paglingkuran. Kumbaga, para kang nag-ampon para may mag-alaga sa iyo, tapos noong wala na silang silbi at hindi mo na káyang alagaan, ipinamigay mo ulit sa iba. Hindi ba’t kapag ginawa mo iyon sa bata, malilito siya at maghahanap ng paliwanag?

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Halos dalawang taon ko nang hindi nakikita sina Tyler at Casper pero sigurado akong kilala at mahal pa rin nila ako. Hindi ko rin sigurado kung naroon pa rin sila kina Mang Roger, o ipinamigay na sa iba nang hindi sinasabi sa akin. Ngunit alam kayâ nilang iniisip at mahal na mahal ko pa rin sila, kahit hindi kami nagkikita? Naaalala pa kayâ nila ang pangako kong kukunin ko sila? Pero ang mas mahalagang tanong: matutupad ko pa ba ang pangako ko? Ang totoo, hindi ko alam kung matutupad ko iyon bago sila tumanda at mamatay. Pero alam ko, isa sila sa mga rason kung bakit ako nagsusumikap. Para kapag nagkaroon na ako ng trabaho at naka-ipon na ako, kukunin ko sila at aalagaan.

Hindi na nila kailangang tumahol kapag may masasamang tao dahil sisiguraduhin ko nang walang masasamang taong makalalapit sa kanila.Hindi na nila kailangang maging guwardiya para lang mahalin.

Iyon ang isa sa mga munting pangarap na sinisikap kong matupad.

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FRANCESCA THERESE BALTASAR

Recharge digital art

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MARI SAMANTHA BERSALDO

Take Your Time

An hour before I died, I was slumped over a wooden table in the corner, a hand circled around my blue martini. The lotus flower floating with the ice cubes drifted with ease. Right now, you and I are a two-body problem, unsolved.

I’m sorry I left you.

Fifteen minutes later, I drove back to our house, speeding through the city roads with reckless abandon, swerving to the final left, but my car crashed into the lamppost when our gate came to view, and then I died.

Every day was the same and began like this: The floor was warm from the faint patches of daylight – it would have woken me up if you hadn’t moved our geranium and plumeria plants to shield us.

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When I opened the red door to our kitchen, the warm scent of breakfast surrounded me. You were making scrambled eggs, sprinkled with chopped chives and cooked in buttermilk. The familiar plates – the one with painted flowers at the edges – were set on the table. On it had been fried milkfish, seasoned with grounded black pepper and crushed garlic, freshly-steamed rice on the side.

“Morning,” I muttered.

You only nodded in response.

I sidled off to the side, taking our mugs from the drawers. The mornings of our fifth summer together, making instant black coffee, two sugar packets on yours and a creamer for mine. We slipped into our routine, working in comfortable silence.

You and I were okay that morning.

A little strained, but okay.

It was a Sunday and our kitchen was quite empty, so we drove to the newly-built grocery store a few blocks from our home. It stood bright-yellow; we couldn’t miss it if we tried.

There had been nothing to talk about. I was fine with it, but you interrupted the silence by turning on the radio. Before I drowned it out, the weatherman mentioned the incoming rain.

“Do you want to go to the bay tomorrow?” I asked.

“Tomorrow?” You repeated, taking your eyes off the road long enough to look at me. “But I have work.”

“You’ve been working too hard,” I said softly. Knowing you were still looking at me, I turned to stare at the blur of houses. “And we have to get something for your mom – it’s her birthday soon. Your aunt greeted her early – like, the week before on Facebook. Has she told you what she wanted?”

“I don’t know.”

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There was a moment of expectant silence. I waited for you to elaborate, but you didn’t budge.

“Hey, I was kidding,” I added with a half-laugh. “We’ll figure it out.”

Your continued quietness was not reassuring.

“Come on, talk to me.”

“It’s nothing,” you finally said. Was it? You looked like you were about to full-blown scowl. “Of course, you, out of all people, would remind me of her birthday.”

“What?” On moments like these, I dislike your desire to be as ambiguous as possible. “I was – I was only making up small talk.”

Your eyes fluttered shut, hands gripping the steering wheel tighter.

“Be serious.”

“Is this about last week again?” I muttered under my breath, right hand comping up to pinch the bridge of my nose. “Haven’t we made up already? I forgot and… and I’m sorry.”

“You should be,” you said, your voice climbing a little higher than before. “God, it’s like pulling teeth when you apologize.”

I reached across to hold your hand, but you moved it away. “Let’s not do this. Please. You know I love you,” I said instead.

“You didn’t prove you did last week.”

“What? Are you really doing this? Now?” I replied incredulously.

“Like you said – it’s been a week! Don’t you – don’t you think you made me suffer enough?”

“Suffer – are you kidding? A week wouldn’t have made a difference.” Your glare burnt holes into the steering wheel. “Do you think I’ll forget easily?”

“We’re buying groceries and you’re bringing up old problems.”

“I waited for hours at the god-awful restaurant!” You started shouting, outraged. You drowned out the weatherman with your voice. “Am I not allowed to be mad now?”

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“What – what are you doing? Why are you getting so heated up over this? Don’t shout, please – I don’t want to argue today.” I asked.

“Because you should’ve told me!” You slammed your hand at the steering wheel, flinching at the magnitude of your own anger. “I was so worried for you… and – and when you got home, you say you got caught up in work? Unbelievable.” You scoffed. “You’re–” “Would you rather I lied? God, would you – can you calm–” You stopped the car, interrupting me. A quick look at the windshield told me we were at the grocery store.

“Calm down? Are you being serious?” You snapped. “Oh my god.

God. It’s… it’s almost funny that– that you’re acting like your father–” “Stop,” I said. “Don’t go there, and get the fuck out of the car.”

“This is my car,” you challenged me.

“Okay, alright. Fine.” I took my jacket out of my lap, then threw it over my shoulder. “Don’t wait up.”

“I don’t intend to,” you replied.

I slammed the door in your face.

So, on a Sunday night, I ended up in a Chinese speakeasy in the underbelly of the city. It was easy to miss – hidden on the second floor of a residential building, four golden lanterns hanging from the tiled roof. Inside was a stifling room in thirty-three-degree heat, the warm color of the red neon lights blanketing over the bar counter.

You hated what vodka reminded you of – your dad, but I’m drinking my third vodka martini with blue curacao, a lotus flower floating on top.

I left it on the table.

When I drove back home, I don’t know if my vision was blurry from the tears or the alcohol, and I wondered if I should’ve walked back because I needed you to forgive me, but I hated you for being angry – my thoughts were interrupted when I ended up crashing into 116

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the lamppost, my head slamming to the headrest, the sudden whiplash forcing my eyes closed, the metallic taste of blood filling my mouth– – –and I woke up again on a Sunday morning, sitting up from the floor in a desperate rush. A nightmare, I thought. A very, very bad one.

But I was confused – should I have known where the patches of sunlight would be on the floor? Before I even opened the door to our kitchen, should I have expected you would be cooking scrambled eggs with six tablespoons of buttermilk, then a dash of salt and pepper?

My hands shook as I poured the creamer into my coffee, almost spilling it when I brought it to our table.

Then, we were driving to the grocery store. A memory of a car crash – no, not a memory – my dream from earlier resurfaced, and I frowned. You must have seen something on my face when you asked– “Are you alright?” You gave me an indecipherable look, but I could see the concern in them.

No, not really, I wanted to say.

“Uh, yeah. Yeah. Totally fine.” I ended up stumbling over my words. “I just… work. Work’s been hard for me, lately.”

“Work, huh?” You looked over me. “Making you tired enough to forget about me?”

And I argued with practiced ease. I felt like you and I were reading lines from a script, the nightmare continuing to hang on to my mind.

Why did it feel so familiar?

We kept arguing until we reached the grocery store.

You told me to fuck off in the parking lot.

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near our old high school. The route to the liquor section was short, my hand reaching out for the vodka – but I thought of you and flinched.

I walked outside to the flower center next door. Row upon row, the gleam of bright- yellow sunflowers, roses, pink carnations, mums, and stargazer lilies overlapped each other until they were indistinguishable.

I could feel everything happening – the kid complaining about the Manila heat, holding on to his mother’s arm; a teenager leaning his bike on an old tree, talking to three of his friends; a man nailing a printed tarpaulin to a corrugated roof, drenched in the summer heat.

I ended up buying a bouquet of lotus flowers. Your geraniums and kalachuchi might have been feeling too lonely.

But as I reached for my car keys, I felt a sharp pain at the back of my head. I stumbled, my free hand clutching my hair in panic. It felt wet, so I brought my hand to see blood trailing down my arm. My heartbeat started to race, and then I thought of you and how I haven’t said sorry yet, but I collapse to the hard asphalt, and I– – –wake up, a scream stifled in my throat. For the first time in two days, I checked the calendar on my phone. I couldn’t deny it anymore – I had been living, dying, and repeating this Sunday over and over.

But today, our argument hadn’t happened yet and I can still make this right. And then, everything will be normal again.

But. But. What if it didn’t?

I hadn’t wanted to think about it. So, I opened the door to our kitchen, walked up to you and said– “Can I take you somewhere today?”

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(“Where are we going?” You asked, a glint in your eye. You put the sun visor down against the glaring sun, my jacket over your lap.

Your rosary hung on the rearview mirror, a miniature Virgin Mary on the dashboard.

I held your hand on the road, the summer wind drifting through the rolled-down windows. When the city disappeared behind us, you smiled more. You talked more. Your laughter unraveled the love I kept for you.

“It’s a surprise,” I said, turning down the radio. “Don’t worry – you’re not overdressed.”

“How mysterious,” you teased, placing your sunglasses on top of your head. “Can I guess?”)

We were alright.

But the world seemed to disagree.

It happened at an intersection. The truck had a brake failure and hit the car before ours, but it happened too fast – I couldn’t stop your car. We hit them, and all I could see was blood, blood, blood. Glass on the console. The heatwaves in the middle of summer. Your bloodcurdling scream was barely stifled from the crash.

God, I hadn’t wanted to look at you. But I did.

There was a gash on your forehead, blood dripping down your cheek. You didn’t bother to stop the blood flowing from your wound.

I brought my hand to your face, and you mustered the strength to open your eyes. You leaned into my embrace.

“Oh no, no, no. I’m sorry,” I muttered a shaky breath. “I’m so sorry. Just stay – keep your eyes open. Please. God, I just need to–” “It’s okay,” you whispered. Your voice hurts so much to listen to.

“Please,” I said. “I don’t want to lose you.”

But when you closed your eyes once more, I knew I was alone.

I leaned back to my car seat. I could feel it all, letting the pain and 119

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grief ebb and flow through me. My face was wet with tears and blood, and I think the world got a little bit dimmer every second that passed.

Dying was easy. But the hardest part was watching you die when I was still alive.

Unlike the others, death comes to me slowly in that loop.

On the ninety-ninth Sunday, we were at the parking lot again.

I held back my tongue. I promised myself it would be different this time around.

I hadn’t left you for the bar. I hadn’t left you for the convenience store. But I had enough of my pride, so I took a step closer to you.

At that moment, the rain poured. Hard. I remembered it from the radio; you were caught off-guard. You looked up, the droplets rolling down your cheeks, making your hair look darker as we got soaked in the summer rain.

“I love you,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“Stop.” You closed your eyes, pausing to swallow. “Just… stop.”

“We’ve been together for a long time,” I whispered, walking closer to you. And it all came to that ninety-ninth Sunday – the golden sun showers, the fiery warmth of vodka, the bright ocean of flowers, and the wonder of beginning again. “Do you think I’ll give up on us after one fight?”

“Do you know how stupid I felt waiting for you?” You muttered, closing your eyes in frustration.

“You don’t have to forgive me now,” I replied, my voice weary.

“But if you’ll have me, then I want to make it up to you.”

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You turned your back on me. “It’s going to take a long time before we become normal again.”

“It’s okay,” I said in a low whisper. “As long as we’re together today and every day after that.”

On the hundredth day, I woke up on a Monday.

My first Monday.

And everything was never the same.

You hovered over me in your red apron, the scent of fried batter and burnt pancakes in the air. The summer sun forced us to squint at each other, and we looked silly. You moved the plants again – there were three of them now, you reasoned.

You are you and I am me – figuring everything out all over again.

Maybe we’ll make mistakes tomorrow, but we’ll also make better ones.

It’s us, anniversary and arguments and making up, time and time again.

“Hey,” I said. “Your lotus flowers on the windowsill are starting to wither. You have to replace them.”

“I don’t even remember where they came from,” you said but I remember – it was ninety-nine Sundays ago. I don’t want to forget anymore.

And you leaned in to kiss me, then we broke out into laughter.

I want this to last forever.

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ALIEXANDRA HEART PO

Casa de Cajel

acrylic and gouache on paper Honorable Mention in Traditional Art, 11th DLSU Annual Awards for Visual Arts 122

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ALLIYAH VANESSA PROVIDO

The Final Poinsettia

The amber yet wistful hue of the afternoon sky blends with the thin

winds around me, making the others that were starting to turn brown seem golden yet due. Only one of them is vibrant, so I picked it up from the Earth, soil and mud and dust clumping just millimeters away from my feet. Clutching the hem of the red cardigan my Grandmother stitched for me and with the December breeze kissing my cheeks, I entered our humble solace, with the wooden planks creaking under every step. This cold weather is piercing through my heart.

I kissed the poinsettia in my hand. It has always been a ritual, a tradition, and a culture -- poinsettias are the core of our Christmas, and of the many Christmases before me. The red is already a masterpiece on its own, but my Grandma Cel likes to add a little more splendor to it. She would often make me glue some glitters onto its surface and tell me stories as to how her mother back then would teach her to make the beautiful even more elegant. Her mother, she narrates, was never content on how things were – for example, she would often add patches of flower-shaped cloth onto my grandmother’s skirts to 123

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avoid making it look like any other young girl’s skirt. Same with the poinsettias they grew at their home back then, she was never content with the vibrant, bold, and daring red pigment. Every Christmas, they would sit around the pebbled walkway and give the poinsettias a new life. Sometimes, my Grandma narrated, they sell the poinsettias, but they keep most of them until they lose their bloom. They usually start this tradition once they reach their teenage years. Grandma always told me that since I turned 13 that year, she was so excited to see how I am going to decorate my first poinsettia, and that she hopes it will turn out good – or else, I will be such a disgrace to a family who treats creativity and having an eye for beauty as the pinnacle of everything good.

“Hija, no one in our family is born with no good eye for the arts.

Ever since your Lolo became a National Artist, he would always make us compete in everything related to the arts.”

“And your family does poinsettia designing, Lola?”

“Yes. My other relatives did paintings, carvings, flower arrangements – everything. Everything related to the arts. But we are most skilled here since we have a poinsettia plantation. And among my siblings, I am the best, so my mother kept on training me to keep the tradition alive,” Grandma said while examining the blooming poinsettias. “And to keep your Lolo’s spirit alive.”

“Did my mother learn poinsettia designing too? Is she good in the arts like you?”

She paused for a moment.

“And that is why I want you to learn this. One disappointment is a little too much for your Lolo’s name,” she said, caressing my face.

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Grandma Cel was no different from her mother, who she always described as someone who would never be okay on an ‘okay’.

As a true child of her mother, Grandma also never settled for anything mediocre, except for me – because she had no other choice. She always tells me to read books that would sharpen my mind, instead of those fairytale nonsense I consume about five times a day. If I continue to read nonsense, she says, I might turn out just like my mother who married a prick who liked to speed off highways without caution.

I remembered the first time I tried to cover an entire poinsettia with red and gold glitters. It was the first time I saw Grandma smile at me, the crow’s feet beside her eyes becoming more apparent. That day was a cut above the rest – I felt excellent and adored. Grandma even said that if I continue having such an eye for beauty, then she would not be embarrassed to enroll me in an arts college. Maybe, she says, I can catch up with the other students and not be shamed in front of everyone. Maybe, she says, I would be different from my mother who got nothing but red marks all throughout her education and never added anything great to our family name. Maybe, she says, I would be wiser and pick a guy who is sweet and gentle, especially when driving.

Maybe, I would not die young.

In hopes of seeing my Grandmother happy every Christmas, that first poinsettia design became my template for a good four years.

I just change the color and patterns every succeeding year, hoping that Grandma wouldn’t notice my scheme – hoping that Grandma wouldn’t realize that I do not have an eye for beauty unlike her and her mother and the generations that came before them.

“What would you paint the center now?,” Grandma asked.

“I don’t know,” I said while staring intently at the cup of pink glitters.

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“Here you are again,” Grandma says, sighing and scratching her forehead. “It looks bare. Alexandra, there will come a time wherein I won’t be around anymore. What would you teach your child when she turns 13? Do not let this tradition of ours die. Remember what I told you: everyone in this family has a creative eye. Well, except for your mother.”

Letting out a sharp exhale did not help at all. My hands were trembling as I painted the center green, as Grandma suggested.

“You really don’t have it in you.”

I put the paintbrush down, as gentle as I could. “Yes, Grandma.

I don’t have it in me – I never had it within me. I was doing all of this out of fear. You were – you are never satisfied with anything I do, even if I try so damn hard! I don’t know how– why! How can I ever make you proud?” My words flowed like a stream interrupted by occasional whimpers.

“This is the only chance you have every year to prove yourself, yet you…”

“Yet I still fail? I am so tired of proving myself. I’m 18 and I’m still not good enough for you! Do you think I do not know that? I fail in school, at home, in life, I fail in everything!”

“Alexandra…”

“I’m sorry. Or I’m not,” I said, standing up. “But this stupid tradition stops with me. It’s nonsense, in the first place. Lolo’s already dead! Say his name in the streets, no one knows him! And this?

It’s already beautiful on its own, even if I destroy it,” I said while crumpling the poinsettia in my hand. “You don’t need to belittle me everytime just to please a dead man.”

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“Alexandra, this is my greatest fear,” she says in a gentler tone as she shifts her eye on the destroyed poinsettia. I know it crushed her.

“I am afraid that you will become like your mother. She had you too soon. She’s the same age as you when she stopped making poinsettias with me and eloped with that man. Your mother never followed me, and just like you, she is upset when I tell her she’s not good.”

“Because you are never satisfied! Maybe that’s why Mom wanted to be so far away from you. I wish she took me with her.”

“What did you just say?” Her tone became sharp again. She was inching towards me.

Silence fell. The tears in her eyes were about to make their free fall, carrying with it the pulsating joys of the parol in front of us.

I looked at her face, illuminated with the red hues of Yuletide and anger.

“Merry Christmas.”

The attic had always been my cradle – from that day of anger and screaming up to this present day of sorrow and grief. The cramped, dust-filled room once again welcomed me into her embrace when I cannot bear to exist. I study the poinsettia in my hand right now, remnants of the earth still in its stem. Grandma Cel once told me that she had an entire box full of pictures of decorated poinsettias in the attic, and this will be the first time that I would see what was inside of it. She never let me open this box because she wanted the designs to come from my own imagination. But today, I decided to just randomly pick an image and desperately copy my grandmother’s vision.

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As soon as I felt the cold knob of the attic’s door, I felt guilty and, once again, mediocre. Grandma’s voice echoes through the hallway, like a billow consuming the creaking floorboards and walls.

“Do you ever have anything original in your mind, Alexandra?”

Nothing. I have nothing. I opened the attic door, put my hand inside the box, and picked one out of a hundred.

December 25th, 1983. For Marianne, the greatest blessing of my life, the back of the image read. The edges of the poinsettia in the photo was covered in silver glitters and splattered with white paint. It was beautiful, even more so because it was for my mom. But the poinsettia itself was smaller than usual, looking like it could have bloomed more beautifully if it had been planted longer – just like her, if she was given more time. Grandma cherished her so much, or maybe even too much that she let her break loose and run free from her. Grandma had no other choice. Mom deeply loved my father – she loved his antics, how he held the wheel with just one hand at 12 o’clock and the speedometer pin passing 140. Her love for him exceeded kilometers and stretched farther than the highway, and is stronger than the crash that killed the both of them. With no headlights, they wanted to get away as far as possible. But the dawn said no and laid the shards of their story along with the tar in the road construction that they failed to see.

I rummaged further inside the box, trying to look for the poinsettia she and Grandma made for me in the year I was born.

There was none.

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I went downstairs, holding the poinsettia and the photo and treading every step with tears down my cheeks. Had I been there in the car with my parents that day, would life be any different? Or better? Or worse? Grandma never told me the reason why my parents decided to leave me behind, and I still do not know if I should thank the heavens for it.

I dipped my middle finger onto the porcelain cup that I filled with silver glitters. That cup was Grandma’s favorite porcelain piece out of everything she had in her collection. It was a fine china cup decorated with pink carnation flowers all over. I remember her telling me that this is also the same cup she and her mother used whenever they decorated poinsettias. The cup was placed far back in the cupboard, hidden from clumsy hands and careless fingers. Grandma never let me use this – only the genuinely and creatively good ones can.

By the time I finished gluing the glitters in the last poinsettia bract, I knew that I had already consumed all of the energy that was left in me. It was already dark outside as I figured from the window – the ivy vines intertwined with the power lines were lit only by the moonlight and some flickering street lamps, if your house is fortunate enough to be situated in front of one. The winds sang a tune of melancholy – somewhat sinister, if you listen closely. My hands are shaking and sweating. Pasmado, as Grandma used to call it.

Clang!

Clang. The sound that I heard as I threw the porcelain cup across the room. Grandma’s favorite cup. I let out a sigh of relief, and took a last glance at the dying poinsettias before leaving the house.

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The first bract became so stiff as the silver glitters hardened.

There was no order in how I decorated it – I just filled the entire surface with glue, and then dipped it onto the cup of glitters. As I passed by a flickering streetlight, the second bract looked so simple and lacking. Its half-decorated edges glimmered in the faint light from the streetlamp. The third, fourth, fifth, and succeeding bracts – I was too burnt out to even think of what they could have been. Some were entirely silver, some were a cesspool of glue, and some did not even have anything on them.

I started touching the flower again, feeling its every sharp edge, as soon as I entered the cemetery. I let the grass embrace my being, like how the earth now cradles Grandma. This cold was piercing through my heart.

“Merry Christmas, Grandma. This is the last one we have at home.”

Her tombstone was covered in moss and grime, and the poinsettia I put beside it made it look nothing better. Ever since Grandma died of a heart attack a year ago, nothing has been good enough. I still remember her clutching my hand, muttering something about loving me unconditionally, but she closed her eyes just before I could say I loved her, too. Everything happened in mere seconds. Even in her death, I did not know what to do. I knew nothing, and there is nothing new.

The night’s breeze felt all too familiar, and the crickets are calling home. I tread the roads lit by moonlight and by the flickering red tints of parols hanging on the roadside houses, imagining another pair of feet walking side by side with me. This is the most peaceful Christmas I ever had.

130

Malate Literary Folio

URIEL ANNE T. BUMANLAG

Give and Take

3rd Place in Photography 11th DLSU Annual Awards for Visual Arts

131

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ADDIE HOLGADO

Teddy Bear pencil and ink

132

Malate Literary Folio

SCIANNE QUIROZ

The Devil Writes A Dream 3rd Place in Essay, 36th DLSU Annual Awards for Literature

I

had a teacher back in senior high school who had quite a reputation.

She is the very image of a dreamy school nightmare—crimson red lipstick, 80s curls that traveled to the 2000s, and five-inch heels that stomped louder than the ring of the morning bell. Students truly feared her presence and her intimidating strut, which she decorated with her double-standard grading principles. Her laid-back wickedness towered over the school premises, although her height shrinks her visibility in a sea of people during school assemblies. It’s a marvel how somebody shorter than the students she frightens recreates the Exodus each time she passes the hallway.

In ninth grade, our classroom was situated in an isolated area of the high school building. It stood between a Speech Laboratory no one ever used and another classroom occupied by forty well-behaved students. There was one moment of each day that never failed to startle our class up until the end of the school year, despite its consistent reoccurrence. We would begin to hear an archaic symphony from behind the wall that separates the two classrooms. Her high heels pounded on the stone ground from a short distance, as if each year 133

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that passed in the ninety year-old building paid its due collapse by her every step. Our heads followed the clacking of her heels, which had become another instrument in the Game of Thrones opening score that seemed to await her. Once she drifted into the other classroom door, only then did our ears return their attention to our own teacher.

During the first few weeks of the year, we all wondered what the daily spectacle was for. I mean, for God’s sake, it was the same boring afternoon on our end. When we finally heard from one of the students of that class, she sighed a rather confused adoration and said, “Oh that was for her entrance.”

I was waiting for my Economics teacher outside the faculty room one afternoon when she stepped out and stood about a yard away from me. God the pounding of her heels barrages into your eardrums when she’s a lot closer to you. She opened a conversation with three students from the class next to ours—I couldn’t help but overhear their casual laughing over what seemed like morning gossip misplaced at three in the afternoon. She was telling them a story, about a seventh grader who did not know that her first name is Lucilyn. To feed her curiosity, she asked her, “Ms., is your name Lucifer?” I turned to the other side to conceal my wheezing... oh just kill me, just kill me now.

In the same year, on a dreadful day once unknown to us, Lucifer substituted our English teacher for one period where she looked over our group rehearsals for a poetry reading. No Game of Thrones with us, just her heels, and our adrenalized heartbeats that juxtaposed our impending doom. But everything was sailing fine, beyond what I had expected, until she suddenly raised her voice to confront one of my best friends for being “unreasonably loud.” She wasn’t. I remember her line somewhat vividly ending in: “You think you know better?!” The only other thing I remember is how impressed I was that Clarisse did not sink below the concrete. When she left the room, we all finally exhaled, as if fires were put out upon her departure. We turned to Clarisse, checked her pulse, and then checked ours. Fear won over Lucifer’s carved splendor, and so I always believed I brimmed with luck during my junior high school years, belonging to sections where she did not land as the English teacher. The only thing that tied me to her was my awareness of her reputation, and the infamous “You think 134

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you know better?!” which, needless to say, crept into the brittleness of my bones. Lucifer indeed.

A rumor spread around late February during our tenth grade, one that almost prompted me to return to my plan of transferring to a different school, which I had abandoned months ago. We just walked down the first floor when my ninth grade class adviser, who was also my English teacher in the previous year, caught sight of us and asked us how we’d been. Before we can even lie about being fine, he broke the rumor of the century, “Which among you will we be expecting in the Humanities class next year? It’s still tentative but... she might be handling your writing classes.” Mother of God. A violent pulse that ran through my spine, as if I was told that somebody I love had died or will die. Well...maybe I will. I hope Lucifer opens her gates for me.

Eleventh Grade—Usually, we only find out about our subject teachers on the first day of class through the schedule posted on our classroom door. I put down my first-day-of-class tote bag on the armchair I had picked. I often chose the one by the front door on the front row, since it’s the least cold part of the room and I happen to turn into ice at anything below 22 °C. I stepped out to check the posted schedule on the door, but I was distracted. The hallways were populated by friends laughing over vacation stories, from beach to breakups, entertainment claimed its place. My friend would rush towards me to tell me a joke she knows very well I’ll die chuckling at, not until Clarisse gives my humor a condescending stare which has survived for years. Summer vacations change nothing about the women I grew up with. Oh shoot, the schedule. I carefully skimmed through the laminated, color-coded sheet of paper that boasts a line of great teachers... then my eyes dropped their direction on the Tuesday schedule.

Tuesday (1:50 – 2:50 PM) English for Academic and Professional Purposes Ms. Lucilyn Magbag Oh fuck my life.

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...

Lucifer entered our classroom with a brisk, yet graceful walk.

Lord, her heels. She looked like a retired Kate Moss who turned to teaching. It only took her less than ten seconds to compose herself in the center of the platform, yet for some reason, it felt like I could have graduated another class the whole time. The silence that filled the room was deafening, and I could hear our breaths jumping inside our lungs, waiting for their release. “Good afternoon, St. Beatrice1 ,” she said. Her voice coordinated with her fashion in every way possible—it was poetically soothing, but underscored by vintage sass, like if Cate Blanchett voiced Sharpay Evans. “Good afternoon, Ms. Magbag.

Benedicite2 ,” we greeted in chorus. Despite the prolonged inhale that called my demise, I cannot help but remember the Clarisse incident from ninth grade, and the subtle violence of “You think you know better?!”

Unlike what the rest of the faculty practiced, we did not begin with the old (not to mention boring) self-introduction. Instead, Lucifer asked us this: “How would you question the school administration about the policies which you think are irrational?”

I have never encountered a teacher who asks such a query; she is part of what she wants us to question. I cautiously raised my hand, drifting away from my fixation on the quiet apocalypse that is this class, and she called me. I never hesitate to recite in class, but good Lord what was I thinking? I stood in pretentious bravado and said, “The truth is that it’s never possible to question them (or you may choose death instead), but I would speak to authorities level by level...” There was no way to hypothesize her thoughts from her expression. I curved my body back to my seat believing she showed us an invisible button I wasn’t able to press. Eventually, after the brutal stillness of the last thirty minutes, she uncovered the magic red button: write.

1

our section label

2

“blessing” / a traditional greeting used in Benedictine schools

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Ironically, the first individual task I had to do for her class was a speech. A class ritual of ours involved a short opener featuring any interesting topic from whichever student was assigned to speak. You cannot bore Lucifer or else all hell will break loose ... literally. I spent about a week traversing a gulf of anxiety while preparing for my piece. I have always identified myself as more of a speaker than a writer; the best versions of my self-expression always relied on the stage, the spotlight, and the endless ocean of eyes I’m dying to gouge with my presence. As somebody who holds dancing close to her heart, I simply lived for the ecstasy of performing —and I carried this drive across the other fields I wandered in, all of which took shelter under the same umbrella.

I have always been able to convert nervousness into excitement.

But even after Lucifer’s arrival, my hands still shook like a crying toddler’s rattle. She gave me her signal to start, which prompted a feeling of repetitive stabbing inside me that could’ve casted me in the next Scream movie. I began my presentation by flashing a tweet that intrigued me about a week ago. It was from a student who criticized University of *toot* for authorizing implicit sexism and gender discrimination through its newly implemented dress code. I kept talking in such a haze, having only an index card with five words on it as an outline and the ghost of Lucifer flaring next to my shadow.

There was some two-second dead silence that occurred after I closed my speech. I softly shifted my eyes towards her, whose grin appeared like a cross between I-need-a-moment-to-process-your-awesomeness and that-was-an-utter-waste-of-time. She pressed her palms against the upper portion of her forehead, gently slouching her shoulders to the side. In a subdued manner, she finally said something, “My God...

Scianne...where do I even begin? That was...powerful.” Holy crap.

I stopped floating above the clouds of my euphoria after a few days, when I remembered that Lucifer’s class was, after all, a writing class, and I was the farthest thing from a writer. Our first actual written

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task, however, was deceptively simple: summarizing. We read a text that was about three pages long and our job was to shrink it all down to five sentences. We were given a week to work on the assignment, which I first thought to be quite extensive for a five-sentence piece.

How difficult would it be to write a tiny summary? (Turns out, very) I wrote my assignment the night before the submission. Good stuff huh? I read my work the next day and convinced myself it seemed decent.

Well, it wasn’t. We received our papers back after a few days, during a ceremonious distribution that harnessed so much tension.

5/10, that’s what I got, and a doctor’s handwriting in red ink that said: “Please see me.”

“I think I made a mistake expecting that your speaking power is the same as your writing,” she said with disappointment. Well that is a real mistake. “It just felt so rushed.” It was rushed.

Lucifer had her way with criticisms, which required a well-crafted skill in careful perception on our end. It was disliked, even dreaded, more than it was appreciated. But there was something about her intricacy and artistic ego that hooked me into her honesty, into what she has to say about my writing potential, or rather, my lack thereof.

Her critiques started to sound like brutal lullabies that forced maturity on clueless infants—all that but with vague affection. Well, the devil deceives us with the face of an angel. She always told the class that writing is a honed skill, not a gift one is born with. I wondered whether those words were uttered for inspiration, or consolation for people like me who could not, by the lowest standards, surpass goddamn Instagram Poetry. I “survived” a year with her, after a series of 5/10s on pieces that even Wattpad would discard. A honed skill ... maybe after my 99th birthday.

Twelfth Grade—Lucifer stayed with our class for Creative Nonfiction. I suffered a remix of emotions coming into her class again. Her aura grew on me that I barely recalled the Clarisse incident

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and the splendor buried by fear, but my Creative Writing experience with her was an absolute disaster, and it cemented an entire narrative in my memory whose plot was a static you’ll-never-be-good-enough, complete with Eleanor Young’s rich Asian mother vain. The highlight of our creative nonfiction class was our final writing task: a memoir—a fivepage, single-spaced memoir. The last three weeks of the semester were solely dedicated to it; three weeks of reeling, drafting, trashing, starting over, and of course, critiquing, care of the gentle evil of Lucifer. I held my one-page draft and walked the aisle towards her like Virgin Mary’s evening procession. But the moment was cut short by the 2:50 PM bell that called it a day. “You can meet with me before you go home,” she said.

Having somebody read your work before your eyes lends an awkward cricket silence. I have gone through this exact scene like a hundred times already but nothing about my anxiety has changed. After a damning decade, she finally broke into her comment. “You selected an enticing topic which is a good start. But I’m missing something eh... wala pa siyang pangil. That Scianne grip, it’s what made you memorable all this time.” My face panicked over what expression to show. I’ve suffered enough self-loathing throughout my writing journey that a compliment freezes my senses, and instead of turning red, I end up resembling the skin of a fresh corpse. Memorable? You must be mistaken.

What’s with all the 5/10s? Her breathing foreshadowed that she had another remark to leave, the words of death I’m certain, with which I had been self-trained to feed on. “You possess this natural charisma that holds people hostage. You’re inherently combative eh, it’s carved within you. You scare people, and that’s fascinating. That has been, and will be your strongest tool.” Death indeed.

I went home with Lucifer’s words ringing in my head. For once, something else was louder than her heels. Our conversation continuously echoed as I proceeded with the rest of my day. I still had to finish my memoir, and on the corner of my table was a pile of

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college application forms that had been harassing me to at least write my name on them. I paused from staring at my one-page memoir draft to give in to the desperate pleading of the forms, and the blank papers attached to them where I was supposed to write essays. You’d think that the most complicated part in accomplishing such forms is ticking the box of your chosen program, for that teeny tiny box determines, quite possibly, the rest of your life. Then there’s the essay, the godforsaken essay, and the million dollar question: Why did you choose this program? ...

Lucifer had been a nightmare since the first day I met her. Every time she turned the hallway into the Red Sea, the Clarisse incident, all the 5/10s I got from her—there was no escape from her horror. But if somebody asked me what’s the first thing I remember from high school, I would need no time to contemplate on what to say, as if my reflexes had been poisoned by it, by her. The crimson red lipstick, the 80s curls that traveled to the 2000s, the five-inch heels that stomped louder than the ring of the morning bell—I was held hostage by the natural charisma she possessed. She scared me from my death to my rebirth, and it was fascinating.

I returned to the million dollar question with my million dollar answer, after ticking the box next to the program I had chosen. My pen touched the paper as her words carved their places in my vision. Ms. Magbag, the very image of a dreamy school nightmare—more than the underground throne and the flames that painted her mythology, I would never forget, the day I decided to become a writer.

A year and a half after we “graduated,” I visited the school to pick up a letter from my former class adviser. I was leaning to the silver railings of the waiting area when a familiar stomp echoed about twenty steps from afar. I recognize those heels. My face was covered with

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our now usual accessories and my hair had just been dyed plum, but somebody called me with doubtless recognition, and a still poetically soothing voice. I galloped towards her with so much glee. I have truly missed her all this time. In every piece I had to write after high school, I always saw the shadow of her flames behind me, and I still dream of her nightmares with every word I pour onto the page. We spent a quick ten minutes conversing about the humors of our history, and gushing over Marjorie Evasco and her exquisite poetry. Before I could take a step towards the exit, she left a quick remark, “Sometime I’m gonna have to invite you to meet with my current class. There’s so much you could tell them about being a Creative Writing major.”

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ERIN MARIE MEDINA

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RIO ALMA

MAKATA Itinatanong ninyo: Saan nanggagáling ang tula?

Tiyak, hindi mula sa Langit. Naglalakad ako sa mga lansangan ng lungsod at natatanaw ko ang dálitâ sa mga estero, usok ng tambutso, basurahan, barumbarong, at latak ng kabihasnan; at ang dusa at pagkabusabos sa mga pabrika, malalansáng kusinà, madudungis na mákiná, matapobreng busina, uban at tungkod, musmos na kuwintas ng sampagita, walang-tasáng lapis, sa gitna ng layaw at neong kanluranin.

Naglalakbay ako sa kanayunan at sinasalúbong ako ng nagisnang pamahiin, simplistikong dampa, himutok ng kawayan, tuod ng mulawin, nalímot na bakás sa pilapil, basahan sa tiyan ng baog na palayok. Kinakain ng subdibisyon ang bukirin; dinadapurak ng traktora ang mga bundok; iniinis ng plastik ang laot at bangkota; dinudukot ng banyagang aswang ang atay ng lupàng tinubuan. Saan ako hahanap ng bahaghari? Dumadalaw ako sa mga nanlalamig na opisina at nadadatnan ko ang morge ng kasalukuyan sa mga walang-tinag na mesa’t silya; sumisilip ako sa mga matitikas na gusali at nakapahiyas sa mga haligi ang kongkretong mantikà ng korupsiyon.

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Itinatanong ninyo: Para kanino ang pagtula?

Tiyak, hindi para sa santo’t santa. Lubhang sagrado ang kaniláng altar at pálagîang nagnonobena ang kaniláng mga ministro’t saserdote: Nakapikit, walâng naririnig kundi ang batingaw ng inuusal, nilulumpo ng kinaluluhuran. Ng sutlang sutana at lamyos ng insenso. Tumutula ako para sa mga nagdadálitâ, nagdudusa, at nabubusabos. Para sa mga katutubo’t may-arì ng naglalahòng lupàng tinubuan, para sa hindi namamaláyang bulaklak ng talahib, para sa mga posibilidad ng nakasuksok na sandok, para isuhay sa nakagiray na kubo. Para sa katangian ng baino’t kamya. Kung tatalab, para sindakin ang mga esponghado’t nakaeskaparateng bangkay ng mariwasa’t makapangyarihan sa kani-kaniláng mansiyon, museo, at mausoleo. At kung maaari, para isiwalat ang inililingid at binabaluktot na kasaysayan ng mga nilalakaran ko’t nilalakbay, o ng mga sinisilip ko’t dinadalaw.

Ngunit itanong din sana ninyo: Bakit kailangan ko pang tumula?

Tiyak, hindi para sa pera at hindi para sa bantayog. Nalulusaw ang salapi kahit nása bulsa. Nagiging palamuti lang sa parke ang bantayog. Nakakamihasnan ang monotonong batis ng luha at ang monologo ng nakangising mikropono. Oyayi sa hamak ang karapatang malumbay. Nakaaantok ang nagisnang pighati at nakamihasnang katiwalian. Nakaaantok ang ningning ng kasinungalingan. Nakaaantok kahit ang araw-araw na pagbibiláng ng poste at gabi-gabing pagbibiláng ng nawawaldas na karangalan. Kailangan kong tumula upang hindi makatúlog. Tulad ninyo, kayóng bumabása nitó, ayokong makatulúgan at maging permanenteng katotohanan ang pag-asa sa gripong papatak-patak at ang malupit na dominyo ng kalawang at alingasaw.

20 Nobyembre 2021

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ANDREA LOUISE EDANG

La Perfection n’est pas La Beauté 2nd Place in Digital Art, 11th DLSU Annual Awards for Visual Arts

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JACOBE JOAQUIN SEVILLA

Buhay Bossa Nova

Buhay ko’y jazz, na may halong samba¹— Paglalakad ko’y pagsayaw...

Ayon sa ritmo, tiyempo, Ng karaniwa’y ayaw.

Boses ko? Tonong blues— Kakaibang diwa’y dumadaloy, Sa mahihina... ngunit buong bulong, Mula sa bibig kong nakatakip.

Pilosopiya ko’y... asintonado— Araw-araw ang aking pagninilay, Sa bihirang bagay-bagay...

Na minsa’y wala namang silbi.

Mga canon kong salita’y Bulaklak tumatakip…

Nakatago sa likod ng ating Cristo, Redentor².

Mula sa diktadura ng karaniwa’y, Napalaya ang isip.

Mula sa dahas, at baril, Sa gitara’y kumakapit.

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Rebolusyon de coraçao³…

Sa ordinaryong puwersa, Bakas ng paa ko’y Babalik sa Ipanema4.

Nagtagpo ang daga’t Corcovado5 — Ikinuwadro ng bintana, Ng kuwerdas ng gitara…

Melancholia’y nawawala.

Ang buha’y bossa nova— hindi sinasakal, Lubhang bukod-tangi— At muito natural6.

1

- The foremost traditional dance genre of Brazil.

- Redentor—redeemer. Cristo Redentor or Christ the Redeemer is a statue of Jesus Christ in Rio de Janeiro. It stands atop a mountain, Corcovado.

2

3

- Portuguese word for heart.

- An iconic beach neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro. Immortalized by the bossa nova standard Garota de Ipanema or Girl from Ipanema.

4

- A mountain in Rio de Janeiro, overlooking the beaches of Copacabana and Ipanema. The Cristo Redentor statue stands atop its peak. Corcovado is also the title of a bossa nova standard.

5

- Muito natural—very natural. Used to describe the genre in the bossa nova standard Desafinado. “Que isto é Bossa Nova, isto é muito natural.” (“This is Bossa Nova, this is very natural.”)

6

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CHAUNNE-IRA EZZLERAIN MASONGSONG

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Pasasalamat

Malate Literary Folio expresses its sincere gratitude to the following people for their support and encouragement: Faculty advisers, Dr. Mesandel Arguelles and Mr. Vijae Alquisola; Student Media Office personnel, Ms. Franz Louise Santos, Ms. Jeanne Marie Phyllis Tan, Ms. Ma. Manuela Agdeppa, and the Student Media Office (SMO); Department of Literature, Bienvenido Santos Creative Writing Center (BSCWC), Office of Student Affairs, Health Services Office (Taft), DLSU Bookstore, Council of Student Organizations (CSO), Office of the Legal Counsel, Finance and Accounting Office, Security Office, and the Student Discipline Formation Office; Ang Pahayagang Plaridel, Archers Network, Green Giant FM, Green & White, The LaSallian, and the Student Media Council; Mini Workshop panelists, Mr. Kevin Roque, Ms. Ma. Victoria Socorro Caedo, Ms. Mary Cruz, Ms. Erika Carreon, Ms. Maria Gabrielle Galang, Ms. Gesuina Marie Puangco, Mr. Miguel Antonio Luistro, Mr. Vianney Ventura, Ms. Alexandra Dandan, Ms. Ira Mendez and Ms. Paula Bianca Maraña; Contributor for poetry, National Artist Virgilio S. Almario; Dr. Joey Tabula, Ms. Adelma Salvador, Mr. Edbert Casten, and Linangan sa Imahen, Retorika, at Anyo (LIRA).

Most of all, Malate Literary Folio staffers and alumni who are all part of what it is today, and what awaits the organization in the future.

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