Confession: I am a closeted poet. As a child, I loved words. I could not wait to read. In fact, I learned to read because my yaya could not satisfy my desires. I was already suffering as a child what remains to be a lifelong affliction and disappointment with respect to desire, lust and more lust. I lusted for stories, confessions, and poems. What almost killed my lust for art was the educational system. If you ever wanted to kill the love for the Tagalog language, just place your child in the school systems in the Philippines. By the siliconized phallus stuck in the academicians posterior, they will be able to extinguish the lust for knowledge in one year flat. Just ask anyone about their experience in learning Tagalog. If you do not get horror stories, that person is lying.

I fancied myself the next Balagtas. The esteemed poet who wrote in Tagalog. I wanted to write stories in Tagalog. I wanted fame and the Palanca award. But as I look back, I wanted all those things for the wrong reasons. I just wanted fame. I did not want to write a seminal work that touches what it means to be Pin@y. I wanted awards without recognizing what the award is supposed to be. I wanted fortune when in reality, artists who do not know how to sell their work are almost always poor and waiting for handouts to create their art. Thank God, my lust for money overwhelmed my lust for words. But as you voyeuristically know now, I am having an affair with literature right behind my partner money.

dalangin ko ay tuwina mong maalala
ang kahapong nagdaan, kahapong halimuyak
ng paraisong sumakailan,
maisip mong bigla ang halimuyak ng kamay
ang laswa ng hitang nagtago sa tela.

pinangako sa diyos na ikaw lang ang mamahalin
subalit puso ay nalungkot, puso ay humimlay
langoy laban sa gusto, naging karaniwang pagdiriwang.
isang tuba na tinungga upang masiyahan
dahil paminsan-minsan lungkot ay karaniwan.

pangako sa diyos napabayaan,
lumangoy man paayaw; nalunod rin sa tukso,
nawalan ng kamalayan; nawalan ng husga
nagbakasakali, nagbakasarili.

dalangin ng matanda, na ang dalagitang naaalala
mutya ng karimlan, mutya ng katotohanan
nabubuhay na masaya, walang naaalala
kundi ang makatawang paraiso ng
nakaraang paghalik, nakaraang pagyakap.
REtong 18mayo2003

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