A Room Made of Rain

a poem by Roger B. Rueda

It is not enough
to say the Philippines is broken.
The word has no edge—
it is worn, like an old coin,
passed from hand to hand,
buying silence,
buying time.

It is not enough
to blame its leaders,
rising, bloated and grinning,
from rivers of promises forgotten.
It is not enough
to point at the people
who vote them in,
again,
again,
again.

We have learned
to live with the lie.
And that,
perhaps,
is the tragedy.

It is not just poverty,
though poverty swallows villages whole.
It is not just corruption,
though corruption flowers like mold
in the corners of every house.

It is something deeper—
a hollowing,
a slow surrender
of who we might have been.

We traded integrity
for survival,
outrage
for apathy.

We blamed the ghosts
and fed them,
election after election,
kneeling before dynasties
that told us
this is how it’s always been.

And maybe we believe it,
because isn’t it easier
to kneel?

The land itself mourns
in ways we refuse to hear.

Rivers choke
on plastic.
Mountains bleed
from their wounds.

Fishermen cast their nets
into oceans emptied of fish
while billboards shout Progress!
along highways,
where cities rise like miracles
over streets that break
beneath their weight.

Everything shimmers.
Everything crumbles.

And yet,
this is not just ours
to mourn.

Beneath the bitterness,
there is something more:

the failure of humanity
to be what it could be.

We are not alone
in this breaking.

The corruption is global,
the hypocrisy shared.
It belongs to anyone
who turns away,
who watches the ruin unfold
and whispers,
this is not mine.

But do we not feel it?
The edge we are standing on?

Do we not sense the emptiness
waiting?

A house burned to its foundation.
Smoke rising
while we murmur, this is fine.

But it is not fine.
We know this.

And so, we stand
at now—
here,
at the precipice,

where silence has become complicity,
where the wreckage lies
before us,
unavoidable,
unnamed.

Perhaps it is too late.
Perhaps it was always too late.

But if this is the end,
let us at least
look.

Let us see the ruin.
Let us see ourselves,
for what we are,
what we chose to keep
and what we let break.

And if nothing else,
let us whisper—

however bitterly,
however honestly—

what we have refused
to say:

It’s over.