Maundy, Not Holy

a poem by Roger B. Rueda

It is not enough
to call the day holy—too clean
a word, too bleached in its vowels.

The kind of day this is
wore its edges dark
with oil and sweat.
In our church in Tiwi, the women
laid the linen out like a body
had just risen from it.
Someone cut the bread
with fingers still smelling
of garlic and soap.

It was Maundy, not holy.
Maundy, from mandatum,
the new commandment
spoken in the low
light of supper—love one another—
not like poetry,
but like a wound
you choose to carry.

He rose from the table
and knelt—not before God,
but before the feet of men
with calluses like shell—
washed them
with the care
you’d give to a fruit
too ripe,
as if love was not belief
but the act of dipping
your hands
into someone else’s dirt.

I think of my lola,
the way she wiped my knees
with coconut oil
when I fell outside the sari-sari,
how her silence
was its own kind of liturgy.

We forget that Maundy
was not a feast
but a lesson.
That bread wasn’t broken
for blessing,
but for sharing.
That the basin was not ceremonial,
but full of the cold water
from the clay tap
in the corner of the yard.

That he stooped—
not as symbol,
but because we had forgotten
how to do it for each other.

Maundy is the ache
of a back bent too long
without complaint.
The crackle
of fish skin on fire
at dusk.
The half-light
of a house that knows
it is always the last supper.

Call it holy,
and you forget the blood
beneath the nail.
Call it Maundy,
and you remember
he knelt first—
then said,
now you.

Glass Cat

a poem by Roger B. Rueda

It weighed like memory—
cool in the palm,
still sticky with syrup breath,
the bottle bare now,
its red ribbon script flaking
like sunburnt skin.
You could still taste the fizz
if you kissed
the rim.

And yet, in the sultry
stillness of three p.m.—
that hour when light
spills like oil
on the floor tiles—
someone began to carve.

A boy, maybe. Or a girl
with a soldering pen
and a bandage
already blooming red.
They didn’t mean to make
a cat, at first.
They only wanted
to see what else
a bottle could become.

So they heated the neck,
let it soften into snout.
Filed it, careful not
to anger the edge.
Used pliers to coax
the curve into jaw,
added goblet stems
for legs—wobbly
as a newborn calf.

The ears curled
like windblown petals.
The tail never came,
but no one missed it.

When it stood—yes,
stood—on the warped
dining table, beside
a bowl of lanzones,
and a fly circling
last night’s adobo,
it gleamed.

The ribs caught the sun
and scattered it—
as if light
were a thing you could leash.

They laughed.
The neighbors, the lola
who came to borrow rice,
the cousin wiping sweat
with the back of his arm.
Not a cruel laugh,
but the kind
you reserve
for miracles.

Who makes
a cat from a Coke bottle?
Who dares
to dream that delicate?

And what was it, really—
if not the proof
that beauty arrives
only when you’re not
looking for it?

It didn’t meow.
It didn’t move.
But it stayed,
glass spine arched
toward the heat
like a prayer
you didn’t mean
to finish.

In Tiwi When I Was All of Seven

a poem by Roger B. Rueda

for D.E.

The tilapia came quick—
flickers of silver biting the hook
like they too were hungry for company.
By noon, the pail sang with their weight,
scales catching the sun like broken glass.

We stopped by the river,
your hands gutting the fish with a rhythm
that made even blood feel like ritual.
The river hummed beside us.
Our fingers smelled of earth and gills.

By dusk we walked home—
blades of sugarcane brushing our knees,

each stalk whispering stories

we were too young to understand.

The nipah shed waited, patient and smoke-scarred.
You lit the fire like you’d done it all your life,
arranged the fish over flame—
the crackle, a kind of hymn,
their skins blistering into gold.
We ate them straight from the pan,
burned our tongues a little, laughed a lot.

I remember thinking:
this is what grace must taste like—
not the fish, but your silence beside me,
your way of entering my joy

without needing to speak.

Frogs

a poem by Roger B. Rueda

They leap as if the air were made
of velvet: two frogs, their backs iridescent
with the hush of rain. Not so much grace
as it is calculation—the way they land
like practiced dancers in the shallows,
their limbs folding into prayer. You’d think
them royalty, their eyes laced with dew,
the kind that turns even pity into
a polished stone.

In the pond's hush, others pause—
some to marvel, some to sneer. The watchers
know better than to trust movement
that makes no ripple. These frogs,
so adept at stillness, host games
that never declare a winner.

They ask for golden minds, rainbow skin—
gifts no frog possesses. But still,
they gather the hopeful in lily-thick circles,
humming promise after promise
until someone forgets they were meant
to leap, not kneel.

And when the queen glides past,
her crown askew with algae,
they lower their voices, sweeten
their throats with flattery: “Your reign
is rain, your voice the dusk’s own prayer.”
They offer not devotion, but mimicry.

Before the old, they bloat into bellow,
inflate with their own importance,
as if their skin could hold a kingdom
of croaks. They dismiss the weary,
those whose limbs ache with memory,
whose bones recall the first rain.

But inside, it’s hunger—sharp as a hooked nail—
that drives them. Their tongues flick lies
like lanterns, each brighter than the last,
blinding the queen with their honey-light.
They dream not of peace,
but of vaults, of coins buried beneath
the cattails, of ponds ruled by silence.

When the monsoon arrives—
the great unmasking—
the mud lifts, the lilies part,
and all pretense melts like sugar
in heat. Their throne collapses—
a reed plucked too soon.

What remains is this:
the quiet frog in the corner,
who did not vie, did not spit,
but leapt gently across
a reed and lit it like a wick.

That frog—the lantern-bearer—
becomes the compass. Not ruler,
but guide. Not power,
but path.

The Box

a poem by Roger B Rueda

The box has stiff sides—
like the cardboard used in appliance boxes,
its corners worn from moving house too often.
Inside, it is dark,
too dark to see the postcard
from your cousin in Davao,
or the paper rose your mother folded
from a sachet of laundry powder.
It smells faintly of mildew—
the kind that clings to damp hymnals
stored in the chapel’s forgotten cabinet.
And birthdays.
Not yours. The ones you pretended
weren’t happening.
The box holds no light.
It eats sound like thick curtains
in your aunt’s spare bedroom.
But yes,
your imagination is bright—
a kite cobbled together
from your old math notebook,
its margins ripped clean,
its spine stitched with
thread pilfered from Lola’s sewing kit,
the one with a lid shaped like a tomato
and a rusted pair of scissors
you weren’t allowed to touch.
The kite flickers above the rice field
where the scarecrow outlasted
all the children.
It strains against the wind,
a long string wrapped around
your ink-smudged fingers.
Your palm, still damp
with the heat of hours spent alone,
tightens—
you hold the string
like you once held
your brother’s last smile,
like a secret
you have yet to speak aloud.
You flip through old report cards
and laminated certificates
as if they were magazines
left on a barbershop bench—
pages creased,
smelling faintly of bay rum and floor wax.
The images—
bright, falsely confident—
never quite matching the person
you remember.
Each crease,
each forgotten chasm,
a folder of bruised thoughts
and rain-stamped recollections:
your mother’s voice,
cracked open during typhoon season,
your father’s coat,
still damp
after every job interview
that led nowhere.
The garden
you planted in your throat
blooms unevenly—
half jasmine,
half rust.
Each poem
smelling of sidewalk rain
and the faint iron of a bitten tongue.
You speak—
always—
in coffee shops with chipped tables,
as if syntax could save you,
as if every sentence
were an exorcism.
You quote lines taped
to the back of your bedroom door:
Nietzsche beside a fortune cookie,
Emily Dickinson next to
“Buy eggs.”
But by morning,
they curl like old receipts.
You guess at meanings
in the smallest of things:
the way your father paused mid-sentence
that night he forgot your birthday,
the weight of coins in your pocket
after trading your last allowance
for a pirated copy
of Wuthering Heights.
Still, you offer them like communion—
a crumb of metaphor,
a drop of dusk
placed gently on the tongue
of someone who still believes
you mean every word.
You think you’re telling a story—
made of moths and secondhand books,
each sentence
fluttering toward the same lamp
until they burn themselves holy.
You pose—
shoulders stiff,
mouth closed like a prayer
folded wrong.
The mirror sees past
your imitation of divinity—
sees the borrowed diction,
the ghost of someone
trying to mean more than they say.
You speak in borrowed truths—
as if all the world’s wisdom
were etched on index cards
in gold ink,
as if truth never bled
through cheap paper.
Your tongue cuts quick—
like the scissors left
on the dining table
after Lola made curtains
from your mother’s old uniform.
They glint beside the pan de sal—
sharp enough
to slice both bread
and conversation.
Your words fall
like monsoon rain
on galvanized iron.
The sound carries—
even after silence
has tried
to erase it.
Outside,
the box is wrapped
in a glossy pink gift wrapper
from SM Department Store—
creased at the edges,
a leftover from your sister’s debut.
The ribbon, roseate,
folded like the final sentence
in a love letter
whose ends were burned
so no one could reread it.
Beside it:
a Galaxy Note 4, cracked like your map
to a future you didn’t pursue.
Your bag,
soft from use,
slumps with receipts and regrets.
Later,
the birthday party begins.
Paper hats tilt
like broken halos.
The cake is lit.
Someone sings.
No one notices
you are crying.

The Man Who Killed Demons

a poem by Roger B. Rueda

There was once
a man who killed demons—
not the kind that hide
in myth,
but the ones who smiled
as they walked children home
only to steal their shadows.

He did not kill
for medals
or God
or some anthem
his mouth could not believe.
He did it
because no one else would
and the streets kept forgetting
how to stay dry.

Every day,
they wore their collars
clean.
Their hands smelled
of perfume
and fresh receipts.
They dined
under soft lamps
while an angel bled out
on a bus floor.

The demons fed
on easy things—
a girl in uniform,
a boy who could not run fast enough,
an old woman
with rosary beads
and no voice left to scream.

And no one
said
a thing.

The queens of justice—
always dressed in the grammar
of fairness—
sat in glass towers
where the world looked
blurred,
too far
to hear the crying.

Then came the man—
his hands not made for violence,
but for planting.
His back bore the memory
of rain,
his eyes the weight
of every name
left off the news.

Someone gave him
a borrowed power—
not meant to last.
Like a match
lit in the dark
to scare off
everything cruel.

He did not knock.
He did not wait
for papers
or prayers.
He went
to their doors—
some still dripping
with the milk
of their own children—
and silenced them.

The demons vanished,
and with them,
the fear.

The streets grew
quiet.
You could hear
a sari-sari owner
sweeping again.
Children played
with no ghosts trailing them.

But peace
does not please
the queens.

They cried
for the demons—
said their deaths
were too sharp,
too sudden,
too much.

Not once
did they name
the boy
who had to die
for quiet
to return.

They called the man
a monster.
A wound.
An embarrassment
to procedure.

But what is justice
when its mouth
won’t open
unless the wrong ones
are bleeding?

Still,
somewhere in the city—
a girl wakes
to her first morning
without a scream.

And the man—
forgotten
but for whispers—
stands alone
beside a cracked wall
that still stands
because someone,
for one burning moment,
refused to let
the house fall.

The Weight of the Word

a poem by Roger B. Rueda

He holds the word like the smooth belly
of a clay pot still warm from the fire—
confidential—a syllable he folds
like laundry in the quiet of 3 a.m.,
not because he’s afraid of light,
but because some things collapse
when exposed too soon to sun.

It was never his to begin with—
it arrived like a sealed envelope
on the kitchen table, beside a chipped cup,
his name written in blue ink,
slanted like someone in a hurry
to be precise.

Now, voices press like steam
against his bathroom mirror,
fogging him into shape.
They want him to peel silence
from his lips like dried glue,
they say his hush is a shelter
for the guilty.

But he knows
there’s a difference
between hiding
and holding.

They don’t see
how a promise
is sometimes a pair of hands
stopping a plate from falling.

They don’t know the gravity
of carrying a name
like a candle you must not let flicker
even when wind
insists on testing you.

He is not dishonest.
Only loyal
to the thing
that asked him to wait.

Let them call him traitor.
Let their mouths work like hinges
rusted from use.

He will not speak.
He will remain the keeper
of an unopened drawer
in a house still standing
because someone, somewhere,
refused to let the lock go soft.

Island Living

haikus by Roger B. Rueda

Brownout again comes—
radio hums, then goes still.
A candle exhales.

Rice tastes like old dust,
sardines float in rusted tins—
still, we eat with grace.

No fish on the shore,
only bones wrapped in plastic.
The ocean forgets.

The mangoes? Gold-priced.
Sweetness too far to reach now.
We chew memory.

Sun carves out our skin—
even the wind hides from noon.
Shadows sweat with us.

Still we smile and wait,
for the sea to bring us back
what the land withholds.

Valor, Forgotten Over Coffee

a poem by Roger B. Rueda

On April’s ninth, the flag is raised with pride,          
To honor those who fought through flame and fear.        
Their names carved deep where silent heroes bide,        
While we sip foam and chat of mugs this year.           

No memory of Bataan’s cruel sun,               
No whisper of the march, the bound, the slain.         
Just latte art, and pastries bought for fun—          
Their valor lost beneath a sugar stain.             

The day wears robes of silence, not of flame,          
Its meaning drowned in blends of caramel.           
We mouth the date, but do not speak the name         
Of those who walked through war to shield our shell.      

Yet still, their blood insists we must remember—        
That peace was bought with fire, not sweet December.     

 

The Privilege to Waste

a poem by Roger B. Rueda

They say it’s free now—to sit beneath the hum of ceiling fans,

to let your name be called in rooms where walls forget your silence.

No more need for jeepney fare tucked in sweaty palms,

no more mothers trading sleep to pay your way to books.

But look—some sprawl on desks like this were a motel,

scrolling through reels while verbs slip out the back door.

They eye the front row only when the teacher calls for names,

but never when meaning asks to be made, line by line.

And when red ink bleeds across their papers like quiet bruises,

they ask, "Why not ninety?"—as if knowledge came prepackaged.

Their sentences are scaffolding with no building in sight,

yet they want the skyline, the stars, the applause.

O country that gave them pages without price—

see how they tear the leaves, still asking for more.

The Scales Tilt

a poem by Roger B. Rueda

She once stood like a prayer,
blindfolded in marble,
her hands steady as gospel—
scales balanced, lips sealed
like the promise of rain.

People spoke her name
like they would an aunt’s
who taught them to spell fairness
with their mouths closed,
with backs unbent.

But now—
the blindfold hangs loose,
a silk ribbon around her throat,
more fashion than oath.
Her eyes kohl-lined,
lashes long enough to cast shadows
on the innocence she ignores.

She no longer walks.
She glides,
in heels that sound like warning shots
on the polished floors of courthouses,
her perfume sweet
with the rot of old verdicts.

She buys silence—
gift certificates for loyalty,
extra budget for delays,
a lunch meeting with steak
and wine the color of bruises.
She offers justice
in monogrammed envelopes,
the kind tucked quietly
into folders that don’t make it to the minutes.

She calls herself balanced—
a Libra still,
but her scales tip
before the evidence is weighed,
before the affidavit is read.

Now her good
comes at the cost of forgetting
who she used to be—
a blade dulled
by too many soft hands,
a woman who traded her blindfold
for a better view
of who she wanted to save.

No one tells her she’s changed.
They bow still,
as if reverence were memory,
not fear.
They let her pass,
watching the gold bangles
tremble on her wrist—
each one a case
she never closed.

Softness as Resistance

a poem by Roger B. Rueda

They say we are broken—
boys with lip gloss smudged on cigarette filters,
our laughter too light to carry history,
our hips speaking languages they’ve banned.

We want men, yes—
the ones with motor grease beneath their nails,
who smell of rain-soaked laundry and cheap cologne,
who call us names by day,
but lie in our rented rooms at night,
bones grateful for softness.

We feed them—
the broth scalding our fingers,
coins scraped from wallets worn thin
by love that expects nothing back.

We send them to school,
not for thanks,
but for the dream of their names stitched
on barong tags, their shoes clicking
on government hallways.

They—men with God’s permission to speak first—
preach perfection from bar stools,
but cannot hold another man’s pain.

The Mystery of the Midnight Cuddlers

a poem by Roger B. Rueda

The audacity! Every night,
as if the dark itself split open—
two streaks of black silk
glide beneath my doorframe,
shoulders twitching, tails
curling like wisps of incense.

They do not belong to me.
And yet—
they arrive with the confidence
of men who’ve made up their minds.

Their emerald eyes catch
the moon’s pale reach,
gleaming like wet sea glass
held too long in the palm.

They weave through my legs,
tracing figure eights on bare shins,
their purrs low and steady—
the sound of a car engine idling
on an empty street.

Then, as if rehearsed,
they leap with the grace
of something holy
onto my bed,
claiming its center
like it remembers them.

At first, I laugh—
but then one presses its face
into the soft dip of my neck,
another plants a kiss
just below the eye,
its nose cold,
its breath warm
with the scent of dusk.

Their love, unasked for,
is shameless.

Meanwhile,
my own cats—dignified as duchesses—
appear only
at the sacred clang of kibble
in a ceramic bowl.

They eat like royalty
and leave without goodbyes,
tails lifting in practiced disdain,
each flick a full sentence:
You are not needed for anything
but nourishment.

I ask the air,
soft with fur and questions:
Is it something in this building—
a mineral in the pipes,
an aura in the hallway—
that breeds detachment?

Or have I stumbled
into the paws
of a secret society
of velvet-footed wanderers
who cross thresholds
in search of warmth
the way others search for meaning?

Tonight,
I’ll leave a plate of tuna by the door,
not for the ones I feed,
but for those who choose me
without asking
and love
without needing to.

Gigil

tula ni Roger B. Rueda

May mga damdaming
ayaw magpakulong
sa mga salita—
parang ilaw ng poste
sa madaling-araw:
hindi pa ganap ang liwanag,
pero naroon na,
nanginginig sa gilid
ng balat.

Ramdam mo itong umaakyat
sa dibdib,
parang kuryenteng
nakakabit
sa pangalan ng sanggol
na parang panaginip,
o ng kuting
na tumatalon
sa iyong kandungan
na parang sinasadyang
pumunit ng puso.

Hindi ito basta tuwa—
ito ay buntong-hiningang
nahulog sa pagitan
ng mga ngipin.
At ngayon,
may pangalan na ito
sa Ingles:
gigil.

Isang salitang hindi lang
nagmumula sa bibig,
kundi umaabot sa mga
daliri.
Sa bagting ng leeg.
Sa panginginig
ng panga.
Hiniram mula sa Tagalog,
ngayong nasa Oxford na—
parang alon ng wika
na bumangga
sa banyagang dalampasigan
pero hindi nawala
ang alat.

Sabi ng diksyunaryo:
damdaming
sobrang tindi
na hindi mo na mapigilan—
kailangan mo na lang
kumuyom ng kamao,
magngitngit ng ngipin,
at pisilin
ang kung sino mang
sobrang cute
na gusto mong lunukin.

At oo,
ganoon kabaliw
ang pag-ibig minsan—
umaabot sa gilid
ng pasensya at pananabik,
nagiging sandali
ng kabaliwan
na walang sinasaktan
pero may pinipiga.

Hindi lang ito
pakiramdam—
ito rin ay pagiging.
Pwedeng sabihing,
"Ako'y gigil na gigil,"
na parang sinasabi mong
“Mapupunit ako
ng sariling galak.”

At sa ganitong pagdiriwang
ng di-maipaliwanag,
ng di-matinag,
naglalakad ang salitang ito
mula sa laway ng ina
na tuwang-tuwa
sa unang ngiti
ng anak,
patungo sa pahina
ng diksyunaryo.

Dahil minsan,
hindi sapat ang sabihin—
kailangan mong
ngumiti
habang nanginginig
ang pisngi,
habang pinipigilan mo
ang sarili
na yumakap
nang masyadong mahigpit.

Ito ang gigil:
ang damdaming
gusto kang kainin
mula sa loob.

Pagkatapos ng Tayfun

tula ni Roger B. Rueda

Pagkatapos ng tayfun,
hindi lang flad
ang naiwan.
May katahimikan din—
‘yung klase ng katahimikang
nagsisimula
kapag may nasira
pero walang gustong umamin.
Alam mo ‘yung frag padel
sa likod ng barangay hol?
Wala na.
Dati, nagtatakbuhan doon
ang mga bata—
nakatsinelas, putik-putik ang paa,
tawa nang tawa
parang walang bukas.
Tapos dumating ‘yung mga trak,
mga buldozer,
at mga lalaking
hindi naman madaldal
pero kayang baguhin ang lupa
na parang nagco-compyut lang.
Bawat buhangin,
bawat tabingi,
inayos nila,
pinatag,
binura.
Ginawa nilang ulit
na parang dati—
biyts,
lohn,
parkinglat.
Pero kung lalapitan mo,
makikita mong nanginginig pa rin
ang lupa,
parang hindi sigurado
kung ito ba talaga
ang dapat niyang anyo.
Tapos isang umaga,
doon mismo sa dating padel,
may tumubo—
isang tapolanga lang,
walang kaartehan,
walang ingay,
pero nandoon.
Parang sinasabi niyang:
“Nandito lang ako. Noon pa.”
Tumayo siya,
harapan ng araw,
hinihipan ng hangin,
parang binubulungan.
Hindi siya pabibo.
Hindi rin siya nagpapansin.
Pero naroon siya—
buhay.
At siyempre,
dumating ang graskater.
Maingay.
Diretso.
Walang pakialam.
Hindi niya nakita ang bulaklak.
Hindi niya kailanman nakikita.
At parang wala lang,
nawala na naman
ang kagandahang
pilit bumalik.
Ganyan siguro talaga tayo—
nag-aayos,
nakakalimot,
nagbubura
kahit ‘yung mga bagay
na pilit
bumabalik
sa’tin.

Tahimik ang Mesa

tula ni Roger B. Rueda

May tahimik
na kalupitan
ang pagkaabala—kung paanong
pinipiud tayo
ng sarili nating kalibutan,
tinatalikuran
ang pag-inog ng palibot.
Akala natin,
nagtatrabaho lang tayo,
nagsusuma ng maliliit na kadalag-an,
sumasabay sa agos
ng kabuhi. Tinititigan
ang mga baraha sa kamot:
mga plano, pagkabahala,
mga layuning paulit-ulit
na ibinabato,
parang bola ng labahan
na di matapos-tapos.
Samantala,
ang mga mahal natin—
nasa gilid lang—
ay umaabot.
Minsan para kumamay,
minsan para magpaalam.
At hindi natin
sila nakikita.
Ang pamilya, tulad
ng basag na pinggan
sa lababo ng madaling-araw,
ay hindi nagpaparamdam
kapag nawawala.
Tahimik silang
lumalayo.
Ang hapag,
na dati'y puno
ng kwento, tawa, sabay-sabay
na pag-abot sa sinigang,
ay unti-unting
nawalan ng tunog.
Tumanda ang ina,
naging mas tahimik
ang ama.
Ang kapatid,
hindi na bumabanggit
kahit ng mga simpleng kwento
ng kanyang araw.
May umalis
nang hindi na isinara
ang pinto.
At tayo,
nandito pa rin—
nakayuko,
naglalaro,
nakatuon,
naniniwalang
may oras pa.
Na may uulitin pa.
Na hindi pa tapos
ang hampang.
Hanggang sa isang araw,
parang pagputok
ng ilaw sa gabi—
na hindi mo agad napansin—
dumarating
ang pagkaunawa.
Wala na ang lahat.
Wala na ang pinggan,
ang baso,
ang kutsara’t tinidor.
Maluwag ang mesa.
Malamig ang upuan.
Tahimik ang palibot.
At ang lahat
ay nakahawak na
sa kani-kaniyang kutsara—
nakapili na,
nakahakbang na
palayo.
Tayo,
naghahanap pa rin
ng tamang pares,
ng perpektong set,
na hindi naman
talaga mahalaga.
Dahil ang tunay
na hampang
ay ang
pagtanaw.
Ang pag-angat
ng ulo.
At minsan,
sa oras
na gawin natin ito—
ulihi na
ang lahat.

Paspud Restawran

tula ni Roger B Rueda

Ginamit ko ang ATM kard—
ang plastik na may guhit ng aking pangungulila—
sa harap ng makinang
sumusuka ng salapi.
Hila ang hininga, sinilip ko
ang naiwang halaga:
tinatantya kung kasya
ang kahit isang gabi ng karangyaan.

Sa paspud restawran,
kung saan may neyon na ilaw
na parang luhang hindi humihinto sa pagkurap,
umorder ako ng hapunan:
espageti na pula’t malagkit,
parang alaala ng Pasko sa bahay
na hindi ko na inuuwian.

Isang pleyt ng pitsa pai,
kutsarang may langis,
hawak ng kamay kong sanay sa tipid
pero ngayon, dumadaya.
Isang lard sais na koka kola—
malamig sa palad,
bula ng asukal na sumabog
sa aking dila,
habang sa aking wokman,
isang gitara ang binibiyak
ng tinig ni Axl Rose.

Kumakain ako’t
tumatango sa saliw ng rak,
parang may lihim
na hindi kayang ipagtapat sa sinuman.

Pagkatapos,
lakad pabalik sa opisina—
kalansing ng bota sa simento,
kaluskos ng dyaket sa hangin,
bitbit ang katawan
na parang hindi na kanya.

Sa loob, naroon na naman
ang kompyuter na matagal nang naghihintay
na parang asong uhaw
sa init ng paggalaw ng daliri ko sa kibord.
Naroon ang mga peyperwork,
mga papel na tila bundok
na pilit kong inaakyat gabi-gabi
nang walang tanong kung bakit.

Dahil hindi rin naman makapaghintay

ang bukas—

UPNWW, UP Miag-ao 2002

with Leoncio Deriada, Rosario Cruz Lucero, Merlie Alunan, Gemino Abad & Virgilio Almario

A Mirror of Doubt

 a poem by Roger B. Rueda

You have always been skeptical—
not in the way rain doubts the sky,
but like a gambler who eyes the deck,
knowing the cards can’t be trusted
because his own sleeve is heavy with kings.

You watch him speak, weigh his words
like coins you are sure have been clipped.
A compliment is a trade, a kindness
a hook, a hand extended only
to pull you closer to his own design.

You call this wisdom. You wear it
like armor, convinced it shields
your ribs from the blade, but you never
question the weight of your own hand—
how often it has drawn the dagger first.

You tell white lies,
so you see his words as ash.
You smile for gain,
so you mistrust his joy.
You hold doors open
only when they lead
to your own fortune,
so you call his gesture
a trick of the light.

It is easier to doubt
than to face the raw sinew
of your own reflection—
to say aloud what you know:

That the fraud is not him,
but the shadow you cast.

Tonight, he sits across from you.
"You should apply," he says,
voice uncoiled, weightless.
"You’d be perfect for it."

You smirk. "Why tell me this?
Are you just paving the way
for yourself?"

His face folds into quiet.
"Not everyone is like you."

The words press into your chest,
slip under your ribs like a secret.
Not everyone is like you.

You laugh, but it curdles in your throat.
The room, suddenly too small.
The light, suddenly too clean.

Later, you stand in the mirror,
eye your own mouth forming
the words you never said out loud:

What if the lies, the barter,
the careful undoing of trust—
what if they were yours alone?
What if his hands were empty,
and yours the only ones
threaded with strings?

For the first time,
you are unsure.
For the first time,
the doubt does not
point outward—
but in.

The Wounded Serpent

a poem by Roger B. Rueda

He stands, the sharp hem of his suit
clean as a surgeon’s blade—
pressed against the rot beneath,
where the wounds gape, law-wrought,
as if the wisdom of verdicts could
become teeth, gnawing flesh from bone.

Each decree a bullet lodged in sinew,
each doctrine a knife slipped cleanly
between his ribs. He should be dying.
He should be undone.

each principle a gash,

each doctrine a knife slipped cleanly

between his ribs. He should be dying.

He should be undone.

Yet he speaks—slow, measured,
like the world has not
opened its maw to swallow him whole.
He stands where he should kneel,
lips pursed against pain, words
coiling like silk around a wound,
binding it closed in ribbons of lies.

"I have always served this country,"
he says, his tongue a surgeon’s hand,
his breath a scalpel cutting the truth
to fit his will. "I have acted
in the best interest of the people."

His wrist flicks, a gesture—
practiced, precise, an artist’s stroke
on a canvas of deceit.

Behind him, his sins stretch long—
a procession of ghosts whispering
their grievances in the hush of air.
The hands he has emptied of coin,
the mouths he has emptied of speech,
the stomachs he has emptied of bread.

To him, patriotism is a throne
carved from the bones of the hungry.
To him, duty is a golden sheath
hiding the rust of his blade.

He knows the eyes that bore into him,
like torches pressed against wax.
He knows they see him unravel,
his body unraveling like thread,
yet still, he stands.

Despite the ruin of his flesh—
a body crumbling under the weight
of its own falsehoods—he smiles,
because even as blood pools
in the quiet corners of his conscience,
there will always be those
who mistake a well-polished lie
for the gleam of righteousness.

Crisp as Childhood

a poem by Roger B. Rueda

The pan hisses as oil meets the salt-dried anchovies,

their edges curling like brittle leaves in heat,

their scent rising, thick as the tide on a noon-warmed shore.

The eggs follow, yolks breaking into the sizzle,

spreading gold through the pan, slipping into the cracks

where fish bones turn crisp, where hunger waits.

Tomatoes collapse in the heat, their skins splitting,

juice bleeding into the oil, into the salt,

into something sharp, something sweet, something old.

This is not just food. This is a small, bright miracle,

a childhood plated and steaming, a reunion of taste

first met when I was eight, when my grandmother stood

by the stove, her hands moving through the rhythm

of hunger and memory, stirring, waiting, knowing

just when to turn the anchovies before they burned.

She would crack eggs in a single motion, let the yolks

pool, let the tomatoes weep, let the house swell

with the scent of something so simple, so whole.

I sat at the kitchen table, feet not touching the floor,

watching the meal take shape, the air thick

with salt, with heat, with something I did not yet name.

Even now, when luncheon meat or pork adobo or fried chicken

sits on the table, I return to this dish—anchovies crisp

as childhood mornings, eggs soft as a voice calling me home.

The bright burst of tomato on my tongue, the salt

curling at the back of my throat, the warmth

of a past still alive in the oil-slicked pan.

I eat, and for a moment, I am back in that kitchen.

The scent of frying oil clings to my hands,

my grandmother hums under her breath,

the world is smaller, warmer, whole.

Each bite a step backward, into the quiet

of love, into a hunger that has never left.

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