Magayon

Photo by Patrick Ilao on Unsplash

it was here i learned it was enough to simply gaze at the beauty and radiance of a being with rather than collapse as i walked your kind streets kerouac-like with a rucksack on my back sweating buckets you all greeted me with a smile

well, except the cops

yet past the state i saw the beauty of simplicity not needing to climb perfection just merely to bask in its sublime peak watching the lava spout forth in the midnight ink and darkness then to clothe herself in the clouds the people told me you were like a woman not unlike the name baybay who shows herself only when she wants to and all we can do is wait — and i thought

that’s love, right?

there was no conquest to be had just radiance and reverence in the silence knowing that beauty shrouded is still beauty and that a rose by any other name is just a rose i wandered your streets from church to church wondering which of the old gods i was coming to visit knowing that under the pale porcelain was brown skin and i chased the moving bakery in my hunger finding myself lost in a strange fishing village who did not mind my strangeness watching the waves crash from the pacific eating bread and smoking cigarettes

getting lost again

looking for a way back to the hotel i had hoped my dad was done with his meeting for a beer in the bar watching perfection spew forth rage rolling down with the calculations of fibonacci it was worth the mad dash south skirting through forests mountains coasts just to see then to hear my father sing one last time love and duty that always defined him we drank to stupor that final night and on those lonely midnight streets i saw once again learning but not yet putting into words

possession is just attrition

to know to love to adore was to gaze with the heart content that it was enough to be with rather than force a collapse i miss the simplicity of my time there eating in corner karinderyas and apologizing for the late hour only to be met with another apology for the burned rice — jokes on them, i love it when it’s toasty.