SLEEP
You are there asleep.
Tucked in sheets,
Waves of endless
Pursuit made last night.
SHOWER
You bathe and
Water flows, washing away
Scents of your
Midnight blossom.
SUNNY-SIDE UP
Caress the cup’s edge,
Delighting thoughts
Of the dark’s buffet.
SHIRT
You stand still
And I clothe you,
Hiding remnants of
Ways I traveled with.
SHUTTLE
You bid a kiss,
A long travel still.
“At set,” you said,
“We’ll meet again”.
SCRUB
You have left me
To clean these stains,
Some marks of sin
Breathed over lunch.
SECRET
You work and
Your love waits.
Not me; but the other –
I am, thus, a sin.
SIGH
You are then
The skin lingering
With the afternoon rain.
SOUP
You will share with me
Broth for dinner,
Its simmer
Waiting for reply.
SUBWAY
You meet the train
At half past ten,
Two roads still –
Of one to hear you knock.
SHIVER
You are the
Question of this lie,
The ambiguity of
Your return.
SWEAT
You have arrived,
Drizzled in midnight
Shadows, secrets
Not known in light.
SUPPER
You mingle the soup,
Words become your fondle.
“The best”, you said.
“I know.”
SHHH
You flush our sins
With just one kiss,
Promises to drown
By this goodbye.
SHEETS
You drape the path
As we unzip,
Of nights of pleasure,
Of days to guilt.
SKIN
You travel north,
The south I traverse.
In deep, my love,
Shall be the end.
SLEEP
You are there asleep.
Tucked in sheets,
Waves of last pursuit…
… We made tonight.
How does it really feel to be the third party? Of someone you want to possess, but is owned by someone else? How does it feel when every touch is guided by facts of guilt, forbidden and risqué? How well can you keep a secret? How can you end it?
THE MORNING AFTER deals and seeks to answers these questions. It is a story of an illicit affair and the narrator details the routine of being “the other one” and the realizations that goes with it.
I intentionally made the narrator genderless as the main actors in this affair could be as diverse as the many promises they do – from a husband cheating with his wife’s best friend, to a cougar supporting her handsome scholar, even as strange as “kumpares” or “kumares” hiding their secret relationship.
If you are diligent enough, you may notice that THE MORNING AFTER is divided into seventeen sections, equally composed of seventeen syllables each. And again, if you are industrious enough, every progressing section contains hints of time periods which denotes the exact moment the narrator is or was – from the breakfast in “you eat and caress the cup’s edge” in Sunny Side- Up, the lunch in “some marks of sin breathed over lunch” in Scrub, and the evening in “you have arrived, drizzled in midnight shadows” in Sweat.
And now you may ask, is the narrator the author too? Did the sentences come from real true-to-life conversations and even, hmmm, “escapades”? Have I ever entered into a forbidden relationship before?
Fortunately (or unfortunately), I have not entered into an illicit relationship before, or would never plan to be in one either.
THE MORNING AFTER was initially set to be only SLEEP. The first seventeen syllables “You are there tucked asleep, waves of endless pursuit made last night” was the first few words I syllabicated upon waking up at my clustermates’ apartment.
I then thought about Haiku,a form of Japanese poetry. From the little I know of this poetry (or even poetry as a whole), I started to engage in more lines as more time was crunched between audit schedules and finishing this new composition. I was pretty proud of how the work is going. And then…
Wikipedia narrated the technicalities of haiku.
Amongst others, Haiku needs (stress needs) 17 moras in three metrical phrases of 5,7, and 5, respectively. This rule needs to be maintained, each line capable of being independent by its own.
This frustrated me a bit – a lot, to be honest. The draft written was based solely on the seventeen-syllable rule. Following the rule meant revising 80% of the almost 30% completed work – adding more frustrations that comes with counting mouthed words with my fingers and looking like a desperate associate reconciling unreasonable account differences. And so I chose to bend the rules, make it a quarter-haiku instead. This compromises everything, I thought.
Finally, after two and a half-weeks of continuous revisions and frustrations, the narrator has arrived THE MORNING AFTER.
My gratitude to my clustermates Mark Joseph Pizana, Roselle Onofre, and Kenneth Crisostomo for “forcing” me to spend the night at their apartment (which will be my official residence by the 15th). Without their coercion, the narrator would have continued their forbidden affair.
Click on the hyperlink below to learn more about haiku.
No comments:
Post a Comment