We tried to comfort each other, but instead
felt the mud-brown scars pouring all over
our clay-statue bodies
We were once young bugs slithering through
the streets, santans flowering like open wounds,
wearing the dirt under our fingernails
We washed in the olive river
as our lithe fingers spiderwebbed the waters
as if wanting to be taken
We wanted to want
We wanted to be sharpened
We carved, slowly, the soft mist, the milkfish, the distance
between us and passersby, the innocence from the kiss,
until nothing remained for us to eat
We raced towards the long asphalt road
that crawled into all unfilled margins of the country
with the same ravenous limbs
We were strangers peering into
a bright golden keyhole, not knowing
if we were looking out
or in.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 28, Issue 4.
L.N. Valenzuela (he/him) is a queer Filipino poet pursuing his bachelor’s degree at the University of the Philippines Diliman, and he is an active member of the UP Writers Club. He received the first runner-up award for spoken poetry as the Luzon Representative during the PACSA National Midyear Convention 2024.
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