Outsider

By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo

 

A poem dedicated to the Feudal Overlord of the Manila North Road.

 

OUTSIDER

 

outside the stump wonders
“whatever happened to my limbs?”

 

have they become the floors
on whose firmness a child anchors

her first wobbly strides

until she can gallop and fly
or are they now chairs where the old
relax and rock their thinning butts
that used to take the inverted shape
of a full heart?

 

do hearts invert their shape and shrivel
thinning the veins where blood runs through
unable to pass where love passes
unable to feel love even when it passes
unable to see green grasses sway
unable to taste the sweetness of sunrays
and the purity of dewdrops
unable to hear the music of the forest
unable to respond to the primal calls of the wild
unable to remember the surprise of a kiss,
and the rebellion of an unruly heart
under my shade, where once,
passion turned into racy murmurs
that exploded into songs

 

a heart, unable-d.

 

have they now become the floor
where young lovers tease and roll over
under the cloth covering a wooden table
when their parents are snoring dreams
or gambling a few chips but carting
most of the dollars, outside,
where they move under tables,
invisible tables, where they get lost
in invisible hands?

 

have they been eaten by termites
that bred and multiplied from the stench
of dead men walking, dead families walking,
turned rotten by the mass walkout
of their beaten souls?

 

what have they become?

tell me a story of love
as much love as I have given

as much love as you took away
tell me about my limbs.

(For your comments and reactions, please email to: punch.sunday@gmail.com)

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