Some High School Poems: Behind the Verses

Poetry is not my thing. There are very few poems that I can appreciate, let alone read. But high school has a way of forcing these things upon us, like dancing and electronics. Somehow, we pick up a few of those skills, even if just the basics. So among all the stupid things I wrote, here are the decent two out of three (edited so as not to further embarrass myself), all written in 2008.

Past Tense

I long for the days when we were dumber

The nights when we believed in faith

When you'd give up eternity

For the short moment with me.

And I'd let tomorrow go

Just to hear you bid goodnight.

The moon was mine

And the stars didn't matter.

I was the goddess

You were the king of the world

The god of the gods

I was special

You were impossible

Promises were our lives

Goodbye was our death

But you cannot long for

What you already have

And I cannot afford to lose

What I never really had

This one was addressed to a boy who never got to read it.

I posted it on Multiply. Two college friends said it made them sad. A friend from high school said it was deep. Sad was what I was aiming for, but it's not really deep, not at all.

It just speaks of two high school kids who did high school things, like stay up all night chatting in Y!M as if there wasn't school the next day. High school kids love making promises, like 'walang iwanan,' and act like it's the most important thing in the world. They love calling each other special names that reflect they're supposed relationships. He called me Diyosa, I don't really know why. I called him Devarajah and Chakravartin, Hindi names we learned from social studies. He was rather strange, a dark sort of strange, seeking immortality. Yet, he once said 23 was a pretty good age to die (Not to worry, I think he's still alive and almost 25). And his dreams (or what I know of them) are Revelations-ish.

Once, he wrote that the moon reminded him of me. The stars, I knew he reserved for someone else. And that's the end of it.

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Tula ng Pag-ibig

Ilang tula pa ba ang di nakakatha

Ng nagkakaisang damdaming makata?

Ilang tugma pa ba ang dapat isulat,

Kung buhay pag-ibig di nais i-ulat?

Maluluma lamang gunitang lumipas

Sa muling pagtahak sa lansangang gasgas;

Ngawit na kamay lalong mangangalay,

Kung uulitin lang pagsasalaysay.

Kanlungang handog kung ginhawa'y labis

Malamig na rehas kawangis;

Kinagisnang pugad: kulungan

Ng ibong paglipad ay 'di matutunan.

Tamis ng pagtingin katapat, pait

Pagkatinamaan ng panang malupit;

Sadyang sawimpalad, kawawa't nahangal

Iisang papel ang kayang itanghal.

Pintig ng damdamin ayaw isipin;

Makirot na sugat, ayaw sariwain;

Nagligtas na bisig, siya ring tumulak

Sa bangin nilaglag, kudlitang hamak.

This second one began as a fourth year Filipino requirement for Valentine's day because I couldn't finish the one I began earlier (the third one I can't post yet). Inspired by Jose Corazon de Jesus' Pag-ibig, it laments of how I didn't really want to write a poem on love, nor write at all about love because it's cliché. Besides, it isn't as pleasant and good as we say it is. Love, all its kinds, destroys.

I submitted this to 100: The Hundreds Project of the UP Writer's Club and it got published! Unfortunately, I haven't seen it and regret that to this very day, my greatest regret.

from http://orchestroscopy.blogspot.com/2012/10/100-hundreds-project-by-up-writers-club.html
I saw my name at 86! in another photo... which I forgot to save and now it's gone... forever.