Anagolay will birth Maria
Be still, my beating
Pulse, my quivering organ, for
Stories are named after women
Like storms. Limb by limb we weave
Together loss into a body yet I ask you
Not to wither here: before you eat me from the inside
See this body as mountain: take the trees and animals
And suck them dry. What is left of this flesh but the stir
Of what is yet to come. I hold you, here, be still: you do not
Want. You only promise me a new chance of death
As I offer you life granted only by brutal tenderness
You were not asked to be given.
If you ask for blessing, take the mountain and fall in love:
Return myth into the ground and sow limb into earth.
This is how we are born into soil, heaven breaking
Itself to become body; Hell rising into the history of skin.
But before this, a name: when I see your trembling face and finally
You are held I will only need to look. Say you look like me,
Say I’m sorry. What is a body if not the will to become.
After you have left me only then
Will this crying stop. Then, you bloody baby
Girl will do it all over again.
You will inherit this myth. You will inherit
What I cannot give.
Ives Baconguis is a small diwata trying to act human. She writes poetry and fiction in both English and Filipino and she currently studies in the Ateneo de Manila University. She is the current Associate Editor of the Filipino Staff in HEIGHTS Ateneo (2018 – 2019). You can find her at @dallsay on Twitter and @ivesthetic on Instagram.
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