essays | fiction | poetry | photography | art
I know it’s over when I picture the train carriage
it’s an old-fashioned carriage with burgundy velvet seats
a little room in my memory.
You are sun-skinned, but my half
of the planet is tumbling into the dark.
Family is my way of honouring the Filipino spirit, where the bond of unity, the guidance of elders, and the hope carried by the younger generation come together to form a love that is simple, yet profound—one that transcends individuality and connects us all.
It is an old superstition.
The mirror, and the room
dark behind it but for the
flickering of a few fading
candles.
My memories can be quantified in cups of tea,
and meat pies filled perfectly, slumped against
a mountain of mash
Like thirst – a need to quench, slake, state:
first hearse, first coffin and pallbearing.
I become great at darts, a phenomenon
on dart circuits, earning enough from darts
to pay for lobster rolls
maybe they look down
at their bodies as they left them
in neat rows, heads of wheat
crackling green and gold
She arms herself with the metal pipe of the Electrolux
with the precision of a marksman
(coffee, pastry,
food-words,
unfettered time)
Words words words black as a cat.
I just saw you in the periphery of
Manet’s Olympia — or maybe Cézanne’s
…across the bitter world, a sweet gift from Pachamama
like my father who taught me to feel
and press its skin: a map of lost worlds
Porridge 