mata

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tomorrow, i want to wake up in a slow sailboat in Siquijor, speak in a dialect—new.

like the sound of cracking peanuts under the toes and rustling of sugarcane fields.

and when I set foot on the shore,

i’ll just pick shells and make an anklet, walk through a low tide 

and call my self a new name, tell the fisherman’s wife

i’m going to make breakfast for them.

tomorrow, i want to wake up right next to:  the first person who told

me “i love you” and meant it.

or

a surfer boy from somewhere else, we’ll just share a big fat joint, sing songs

about dogs sleeping under coco trees and how the sun seeps through their fur

and it could mean eternity: dogs and gods.

or

a breastfeeding mother to a first born, ask her if it really tickles or if it

feels like touching her own breasts in front of the mirror when everyone

else is sleeping.

or

an old woman painter in an open field Explosions in the Sky concert,

just watching her oil her hands with pastel, 

her wrists moving in many directions, palms textured like the paper.

or

beside someone i just met because i had no umbrella under the May rain.

then, we just fell in-love like that, and it felt like hea ring this one song

you haven’t heard for ages and when you listened to it again, your lips

just sing it, soft, free, swift. and you know, how someone’s armpit feels–

suddenly, like, h o m e.

tomorrow, i want to wake up and fall asleep on autumn leaves

wake up, yawning in snow globes—molding a lamp-shaped architecture using snow

wake up, knowing how a flower is most beautiful when it buds in spring

wake up—in a Tahiti summer night, fire dancing like forever.

but, i, too,

want to wake up in our backyard, watching my siblings play with

water and paper sailboats. my parents lie on the sala carpet, talking

in quiet voices about how the kids are growing up fast and awesome

and the Beach Boys is playing from the sound box.

want to wake up in my week-long bed sheets just rubbing my toes

on my blanket, having this feeling of not wanting to get up

and the whistling of a kettle like mermern’s falsetto.

tomorrow, i want to wake up surrounded by my all-time favourite friends

having this grill trip, the smell of barbecue and nostalgia,

the taste of laughter. we’ll sleep in hammocks, swim in lakes and 

talk about sex, music, farewells and childhood.

tomorrow, i want to wake up and be like everyone else

in their comfort zones, nursing homes, secret nooks and solitary holes–

in a deli where the waitress is hot,

in an old train bound for Renaissance and knows no other way to go back.

or maybe, just wake up starving.

then someone hands me a bubble gum

in an overloaded public bus playing

60s pop songs in the FM and in haze,

i’ll sleep back, sweating, smiling.

.