ampo

01/23/09

*

 

 you know for a fact that i am one strong girl, you gave me broad shoulders and protruding cheekbones because you do not want me to give up all these years. i finally realized that you have created me in such a beautiful way and that one day, you would let me be contented with what i have and what don’t. 

 

thank you for these free toes, you have made me get on and off the bus safely, 

see towns and strangers and shorelines because it keeps me dreaming,

it keeps me breathing no matter how clogged my nose are in most days.

it keeps me breathing with the lips, half-opened

forever, humming.

 

 

thank you for this childlike heart. i have founded SINGGIT not just for the least of my brothers but i still believe in that childhood dream i told you one day that i’d return to you all the goodness you have given to me, all the blessings you have showered upon me and those i love. i know that somewhere, when we gather kids and dreams under the trees, you are with us.  

 

 

 for the sad afternoons, thank you. for memories that have hurt me and left me down on my chin. thank you for the silence you have been so generous of everytime i want to shut my eyes. sometimes, i do not need to ask for it, you just feel and bring the curtains down. im grateful for the melancholy of poetry you have shared with me. it led me near people who made me feel less alone. less tortured. less rotten.

 

 

 

for the able soul to support my family. Karen is doing great, my little siblings are growing up into happy and beautiful people. for everything that you have allowed me to provide to, and you have been there in those times when i had to cry the nights because i needed to provide EVERYTHING. every single thing. for keeping my parents together. for letting me see them discreetly hugging and kissing. for my younger cousins who have been reminding me that they wanted to laugh like i do when they grow up.

 

 

 

 

 most of all thank you for keeping me alive, keeping every creation around me alive and half-dead in some mornings. for the strangers and strangeness, the dew drops and the withering. thank you for the friendships that you have sent me, for every life you have beautifully-spit where i pass by. for the young people you pat and meet me telling me “you are an inspiration”, for people who see me not because of what i have become but because of who i really am. 

 

 

thank you for shorter hours of sleeping

you have taught me not to exagerrate it.

 

i am dreaming more now, dear you.

 

i have so much faith in the truth

than the righteous

 

 

you are really there

and let’s go fishing next sunset.

 

 

 

 

 

glomps and giggles,
tinay
 

 

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