hub-ris

[hub-ris]

I.

Pull me out of mosaic window

Where the sunlight bleeds

Different colors.

Pull me out of the kneeling chair

In the mesh, in the hymnals,

In the whisper prayers of the nuns.

Pull me out of the rubble

And tell me when to stop

Casting these stones.

II.

Like a specimen in petri dish

I let it all happen.

III.

I should have stopped trying.

[hub-ris]

Diane Seuss, from Four-Legged Girl: Poems; “I can’t listen to music, especially “Lush Life,””

[Text ID: “his love bites / hurt, and opened a red door to a deeper hurt,”]

[hub-ris]

[hub-ris]

hello!

could u possibly do a web weaving for all the people pleasers? i would really love it. thank u!

I will be a mirror, don't look at me as myself.

I Loved You Before I Was Born, Li-Young Lee | Louise Kaufmann | the moon: poems to heal your heart, k.tolnoe | Setting Myself Free, Julia Greef | Dear March—Come in—, Emily Dickinson | Neurodivergency Affirmation Sticker, thatautisticjoy (redbubble) | Likable, Mary Kethya Khuon | Come Over, Noah Kahan | The Landing, Marie Howe | Calling A Wolf A Wolf, Kaveh Akbar | Two, Sleeping At Last

[text transcription and image ID in alt text]

[hub-ris]

— Anne Carson, Wonderwater

[hub-ris]

Anne Carson, from H of H Playbook

[Text ID: Hello dusk! // Why is light emotional?]

[hub-ris]

“hot and total ruin I sign my name here”

— — Susan Howe, from The Birth-mark, as quoted in Allison Cobb’s Green-Wood

[hub-ris]

Near adjective: each letter that I wrote miss the point of why I wrote them in the first place. It is not because I have a midnight mind (included in the letter) or there is an orchestra playing in my mind with different octaves. Even the patient butterfly wants to stop it (also in the letter). Letters piling up, they are all hissing like a riot: "missing you".

[hub-ris]

I want to set you on fire, stare at the glow: bioluminescent, touch you to see if I will melt or if I will burn too. Set you on fire for you to give slivers of your light, you a flickering firefly in the middle of forest

For a moment, I am hopeful.

[hub-ris]

I met you when we are both trapped in the web of community quarantine. You are a flickering lampost in the dark alley way and I am a passerby, not a moth or an ant under or above your feet, maybe I am a bee.

You are different

You said and I only stare to your message like how the saints in the cathedral stare to the belivers. I never wanted to be called different.

Days passed and you said

I know you are not in a relationship, maybe give me a try?

No, don't

Sorry

Then silence-- prolonged silence for two days. It is you, who are a Moth.

Christ rose from his grave at third day surprising his apostles much like how surprised I am when you called in the middle of the night.

You said my name like a question, voice tainted with alcohol, then

Hello

Can you hear me?

Sorry for ruining everything.

The call ended like fireworks in the middle of storm. All I wanted to say is

I forgive you, don't forget me.

[hub-ris]

"Been in the dark since the day we met/ fire, help me to forget"

[hub-ris]

02/07/21

It is disappointing how disappointing life can get. Oh, and also, life is the biggest scam I've ever got into, I want my money back.

I don't really know what to write. I just feel like I need to write something out to just simply "talk" but not directed specifically to anyone and therefore I will get no feedback which is both daunting and relieving.

Taal is now throwing tantrum and nobody is glad that what once unblinking giant block of rock is now steaming with high probability of eruption. Me and sister are talking a while ago and I remember saying "sana sumabog na ngayon para isang purwisyo na lang kaysa sumabog pa kung kailan tulog lahat".

There is always fear of the unknown and this anxiousness when I cannot control things or when I think of things happening when I didn't anticipated for them to happen which makes them anticipated but still I feel like it is unforseen. In the Eastern philosophy there is this concept of "the illusion of control" where you really cannot control anything in your life. Guess what, I can control when and where I want to write these JoUrNaL eNtRieS.

I don't feel like talking to anyone now and it feels like I'm hanging everyone with my awkward replies and out of place response. Weirdly, I'm ok with that.

I remember the disbelief in the face of Sir Otep in my Psych days when I disagreed that I am not a people pleaser. The facial expression made me question my entire reality. But now, looking back, I think he is somehow correct.

Last Wednesday night I am traversing the paved way to my house, coming from my friend's house, I remember having this feeling of lightness as if all of the life's burden suddenly decided to get off me.

Maybe because after all those months, I finally got to experience real socialization outside the internet and that, maybe, made me human again.

[hub-ris]

You

It is one of you who wrote regret

Is heavier than gratitude.

One that knew why the caged bird sang.

The other told the handmaid’s tale.

Radioactive: energy emitting—

Gave light to the hidden,

Dividing, infiltrating abnormal cells.

Master of number: the sky

And geometrical shape bender— Neoplatonic.

You are the nation’s feeder

In your chest is the first food

Consumed by the new bloom man.

You are the house of humanity;

The shelter of all nymphs.

Shelter of a statue holding a scale:

Tilted, the blindfold's stil transparent.

When all the witches are tracked

And their huts are broken,

When the woods are pilled up

And forks and torches are raised

All the intellect was yours:

The head, the headstrong bang

All the memory left:

Your body, it was all yours.

[hub-ris]

Exclamation point

The bees when you throw rocks at the hive,

Your heart when you are not home at five,

When you see shadows in your window,

When dogs fret their feet and sing at you,

The teacher said you need to follow—

Undone assignment: reason you knew.

Water drips from your stalactite hair,

And face red when I use you as lair.

Comma

Face red when I use you as lair,

As a Garbage can,

Or a beach house.

You are not the first born

But not the youngest.

You are a book,

They are paper,

A marshmallow,

They are taffy,

You are when a dust penetrates the eyes,

They are unmoving skyscraper.

They are desert

And you are an alleyway

After midnight

In the middle of winter.

[hub-ris]

Game of Tag

When I try, all I can recall is running children

The same age as I am but they are

Playing exhausting games outside

And I’m at the window watching whenever they go.

At first they are one giant land—Pangea

Then an abnormal cell division: one

Becomes two, then four, then five

Cast one out and five becomes one team

The casted one was chasing everyone

Like Antarctic wind, he freezes anything

Where his hand laid upon. One down,

Then two, three, four, and one last boy.

They are chasing each other— a Cheetah

To Zebra, running in circle, dress tight

In the shape of their bodies and patches

Of sweats like lands on globe.

I watch closely to see who’s going to win:

The last boy running approaches the frozen

Teammate, he missed touching it—

a tangent line in Cartesian plane

He tried again to the nearest unmoving body

While he is being chase, I saw a cherishing

Moment— Apostles' eyes in face of God—

The warm touch makes him human again.

[hub-ris]

Provinces of the mind

Superego: a nun or an insatiable mother.

How wrong it is to love.

Ego: I, self, the journals.

Your eyes are blue

Hue adjacent to your orange head—

Fled away from my hands.

Id: primitive I, frantic nun.

Bond breaking, my brain beating.

Books as barrel of my battered mind.

Id: warmth of another’s lips

Ego: you are same as I; a man.

Superego: don’t.

[hub-ris]

You

You knew me like how

You knew every letter

Of your now web-infested guitar.

You knew how my hands tremble

And how small my lungs are

When the cashier, ice cream vendor,

The teacher or that boy in the next classroom,

Tried to talk to me.

With that knowledge, you always step ahead of me

(Your back always my wall)

And answer them as if you are my voice.

You always knew the solution to everything:

every “what is asked”

To every math problem.

Every date and people that I cannot recall

During our history class.

Yesterday, I asked you

If this poem is good

You  answered me

In harmony of your guitar,

And together with your neighbors

Down there: a wind

And a slight push.