#queer poetry
I’m here!
I’m queer!
I give dying nations existential fear!…
I love the way they exist.
They have chaos in their mind but
they’re vibrant in their soul.
They are as powerful as a forest fire!
They think that they destroy everything in their path
But really, they are creating a new path
Creating a new path…
They are the strongest person I know.
Love me more!
Or just…love me at all
Begging is nothing new for me
But this time, it feels different
Begging for a new, unfamiliar love
It’s okay if it’s unrequited
But damn, wouldn’t I love it if she loved me back…
I always anticipate an ending
It’s my nature to prepare for a fallout.
But, if this ends…
I know that you’ll always be the girl
Sitting across from me
At a dive bar in downtown Toronto
Looking at me the way that you do -
The softness, the rebellion
All of the beautiful contradictions
That are wrapped up in you.
A look that would send me diving in after you,
A look that I didn’t know I had been yearning for.
You’ll always be the girl,
Porcelain skin, scarlet hair,
Thin lips that curl into a half-smile…
Sitting across from me at a bar
Looking at me, sipping her rye.
If this ends…
I know that I’ll still see you, seeing me
If this ends…
I know that I’ll keep looking for you
In ghosts and in other girls.
I have never enjoyed sweet drinks
It’s always, “Liquor and bitters, please”
I never considered myself to be particularly sweet, either
It never went down well, I preferred the burn of whiskey
Rather than being burned.
But, I’m sweet on you - oh,
I’m sweetest with you.
[]
Once I had you,
The night I first tried you -
Tasted you.
The night I let myself want you…
I found myself appreciating the sweeter things.
Maybe it’s you, your sweetness
That disarms me
That sweetens me.
Maybe it’s you, sweetheart.
I think of the women.
The women I’ve touched. The women who’ve touched me. The women whose bodies are now so far from mine. The bodies I grasped, pulled inward, knew intimately. The bodies I drew warmth from.
I remember these bodies vividly. I see flashes of their hips, their thighs, their belly buttons. It all happens at once. All of it.
It’s us - when we wereus.
It seems so drastic, to shift from exchanging breath to exchanging glances. When did we stop breathing into each other?
I knew that the marks I left on your skin wouldn’t last. But I can’t help but see you without clothing or inhibition. Maybe that’s why you avoid me. Because your skin still stretches too thin.
Because I still seeyou.
You happened to me. I was happened to
like an abandoned building by a bull-
dozer, like the van that missed my skull
happened a two-inch gash across my chin.
You were as deep down as I’ve ever been.
You were inside me like my pulse. A new-
born flailing toward maternal heartbeat through
the shock of cold and glare: when you were gone,
swaddled in strange air I was that alone
again, inventing life left after you.
I don’t want to remember you as that
four o’clock in the morning eight months long
after you happened to me like a wrong
number at midnight that blew up the phone
bill to an astronomical unknown
quantity in a foreign currency.
The U.S. dollar dived since you happened to me.
You’ve grown into your skin since then; you’ve grown
into the space you measure with someone
you can love back without a caveat.
While I love somebody I learn to live
with through the downpulled winter days’ routine
wakings and sleepings, half-and-half caffeine-
assisted mornings, laundry, stock-pots, dust-
balls in the hallway, lists instead of longing, trust
that what comes next comes after what came first.
She’ll never be a story I make up.
You were the one I didn’t know where to stop.
If I had blamed you, now I could forgive
you, but what made my cold hand, back in prox-
imity to your hair, your mouth, your mind,
want where it no way ought to be, defined
by where it was, and was and was until
the whole globed swelling liquefied and spilled
through one cheek’s nap, a syllable, a tear,
was never blame, whatever I wished it were.
You were the weather in my neighborhood.
You were the epic in the episode.
You were the year poised on the equinox.
Marilyn Hacker
i just remembered that i attempted to translate “salve regina” to filipino in early 2019. i don’t usually write in filipino, so this is the best i could do.
my winning suite, “neither nothing nor forgotten”, in the 2019 gémino h. abad literary awards is included in the special issue on gémino h. abad by the journal of english studies and and comparative literature. my poems are about queer desire.
Funnily enough, though I didn’t even realize it was world poetry day yesterday, I delivered a talk on writing poetry. Anyway, here is a list of my published poems:
- "Greek Chorus Hears Medusa Doing Zumba" in issue 1 of harana poetry
- “30” also in issue 1 of harana poetry
- “With you”, “Las chicas”, and “Mercado” in Argot Magazine
- “House by the Beach” in issue 22 of Riggwelter Press
- “A Portrait of Decomposing Girls” in the ESTRANGEMENT issue of 聲韻詩刊 Voice & Verse Poetry Magazine [in print so link to picture of page]
- “Aubade” in Bacopa Literary Review 2020 [in print so link to picture of page]
Forthcoming poems:
- “Lost in Cubao” in TINGLE: Anthology of Pinay Lesbian Writing (alongside my short story!)
- “Terima Kasih” (revised) +“unmotherly:” in OTHER TIMES (The Sangam House Reader vol. 6)
- “English Policy” in the GLISH issue of The Pinch Journal
By the way, due to the pandemic, I need side income, so I’m offering to workshop your poem or short story starting at $20. You may also get the handy guide for writing poetry PDF I made for only $5. Contact me through Tumblr messaging, Twitter DMs, or thru my website.
You may also directly donate to my Ko-fi.
“The way it’s night for many miles, and then suddenly / it’s not, it’s breakfast / and you’re standing in the shower for over an hour, / holding the bar of soap up to the light.”
—Richard Siken, from “Meanwhile” (Crush, 2005)
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