(2022) Heights Tomo 70, Bilang 1

heights tomo 70 bilang 1 Karapatang-ari 2022

heights ang opisyal na pampanitikan at pangsining na publikasyon at organisasyon ng Pamantasang Ateneo de Manila.

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Hindi maaaring ibenta sa kahit anong paraan at pagkakataon ang kopyang ito.

Maaaring makipag-ugnayan sa: heights, Publications Room, MVP 202 Ateneo de Manila University P.O. Box 154, 1099 Manila, Philippines Tel. no. (632) 8426-6001 loc. 5448 heights-ateneo.com facebook.com/HeightsAteneo

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Malikhaing Direksyon at Dibuho ng Pabalat: Mia Genine Tupas

Paglalapat: Justine Christiane Bello, Marie Jilliene Cloe Sison, Mikaela Alexandria Alvear, Frances Angeles, Francisella Avilla, Francine Carasig, Carmencita Dolina, Sarah Huang, Angela Maria Monica Imbuido, Maria Paulina Lasala, Isabella Lozada, Francesca Tatiana Montaner, Danelle Erin Natividad, Kristine Pabua, Alysa Danyelle Papio, Franz Miguel Reyes, Pete Manuel Roxas, Bryce Garrett Tamayo, Divine-kai Tan, Justin Dhaniel Tan, Nicole Ann Vargas

Folio Launch Team: Ashlee Nicole Baritugo, Vaughn Dylan Ramos, Paul Anonuevo, Katrina Victoria Antonio, Miguel Argosino, Alexa Bringas, Duke Campilan, Zacario Diro, Mikka Dy, Bea Louise Eleazar, Ma. Francesca Gines, Brylle Principe, Josephine Reena Perez, Odessa Julienne Rebaya, Arabella Resado, Lindsey Therese Lim

Inilimbag sa Art Angel Printshop

Nilalaman

Mikael de Lara Co

1 Pedagogy

2 The Russian Formalists 45 Sin Verguenza Emilio Guballa

3 to hell with work. I want to live like Barbie Odessa Julienne Rebaya 5 love is breathing (what i mean is that it’s alive) Julia Hao 7 Cunt Angela Lanuza 24 Lost Women Ana Morales 39 The Ized and Ied Collective Carmen Dolina 42 corpo(un)real Richell Isaiah Flores 44 / Jack Lorenz Acebedo Rivera 47 Mas Maraming Napag-Aral ang Prostitusyon Kaysa Scholarships, Mas Marami Ring Kinitil na Buhay Rommielle T. Morada 50 Paalala't Alala't Inaalala Jerome Agpalza 53 Pares in Cubao Aylli Yaelle E. Cortez 55 symptoms of self-pride Carla "C" Crespo 58 Farwell, Spacetime Beatris Cabana 60 Escaping Criticism Redux Joan "Yuni" Lao 63 Outrun

Editorial

the restlessness from living within a global pandemic has encumbered us for nearly three years now. History often seems clearer in retrospect, yet the chaos we have experienced then is barely a recent memory. With the pandemic as a strong undercurrent to an ever-shifting economic, social, and political landscape, we find ourselves challenged to respond. During the first year of fully online operations, the publication’s 68th Editorial Board attested to the resolve necessary for conscious creation amidst the crisis. The succeeding 69th Editorial Board was guided by a resistance against the oppressive systems that slowed progress and exploited the realities of a “new normal.” A double issue on Truths was published, as well as a public endorsement for presidential candidate Leni Robredo for the 2022 Philippine General Elections.

It has been nearly half a year since Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr., the son of a dictator, took the highest seat in government office. Despite this, the publication found direction inspired not by a sense of defeat, but by a continued movement to rally the community and demand social change. Aid in the form of vaccines and economic support has helped the country slowly march towards a life we once recognized. This academic year marks the return of students and faculty back onsite, repopulating the once silent classrooms and halls with bustling energy and conversation. As such, this 70th year of the publication is guided by the thrust, “pakikipagkapwa sa ngalan ng radikal na paglikha,” to empower a community with a shared passion of art and literature, and encourage the radical possibilities of creation able to dissent against injustices.

Throughout these years of crises, we have seen how creatives of all fields are able to communicate both myth and truth in today’s realities—yet there is more to the role of art and literature past the project to “reveal” and “expose.” In exploring the radical possibilities of creation, they are a means to respond to the present and imagine

the future. Through our call for contributions, we urged the Atenean community to find the courage to defy convention and risk with intention. With a provocation to respond to ambitions and incite movement, contributors were called to dare.

Dares are not to be taken lightly, and awareness of the act is crucial. Richell Isaiah Flores’s “/” prods at and forces a dichotomy of choices of ever-changing scales, while Mikael de Lara Co’s free-flowing “Pedagogy” and spirited “The Russian Formalists” scrutinize the intentionality of poetic form and craft itself.

Intentionality naturally extends towards how one chooses to live within their times and circumstances, such as in the navigation of queerness and complicity in a media-saturated environment with Aylli Yaelle E. Cortez’s “symptoms of self-pride,” or the choice to be a poet in times of war and conflict such as in Mikael de Lara Co’s “Sin Verguenza.” Moreover, it often proves a challenge to simply survive in poverty as a student-prostitute depicted in Jack Lorenz Acebedo’s “Mas Maraming Napag-Aral ang Prostitusyon Kaysa Scholarships, Mas Marami Ring Kinitil na Buhay,” or as envisioned in Rommielle T. Morada’s “Paalala’t Alala’t Inaalala,” in the form of a mother’s grocery shopping list.

In the commitment to self-survival, affection and companionship become a radical ambition, as one craves the love in Odessa Julienne Rebaya’s “love is breathing (what i mean is that it’s alive),” tries something new amidst unfamiliar city streets in Jerome Agpalza’s “Pares in Cubao,” or sends barely-comprehensible messages across the dimensions of C Crespo’s “Farwell, Spacetime.”

Ambitions extend not only from the heart but from the flesh, an arena frequently battled over possession, rights, and power, as portrayed in the sterilizations of “Cunt” by Julia Hao and pregnancies of Angela Lanuza’s “Lost Women.” Similarly, Beatris Cabana’s “Escaping Criticism Redux” reimagines and subverts gender dynamics, while Emilio Guballa’s “to hell with work. I want to live like Barbie” concurrently resists systemic injustice and grasps on to beauty. Finally, Ana Morales’ “The Ized and Ied Collective” gives

name to those no longer tolerant to the violence subjected onto the female body.

While resistance can lead to retribution, the weight and echoes of trauma linger on the body that must begrudgingly carry it. The jarring voice of Carmen Dolina’s “corpo(un)real” conceals a disassociation and longing for disembodiment within everyday activities, while the swirling gray and war-torn past of Yuni Lao’s “Outrun” resurfaces years after the choice to start anew, facing up to the courage it takes to keep moving forward.

Even as other crises rise to take the forefront of our response, the ongoing pandemic is not yet over nor forgotten. As the world opens up again, we are invited to think about the kind of community we strive to live out. For the university, that campus can once again be a site for creation. Underscoring this folio is the very act of creation— of the motion and momentum of a response. Art and literature cannot alone solve the health crisis or guarantee better public service, and so we are invited to be intentional about how our own actions play into the histories still in the making. There is always more room to keep creating, moving, resisting, hoping—if only one braves the challenge. So, what are you waiting for? I dare you.

Andrea Faustine Isaac November 2022

mikael de lara co

Pedagogy

Poetry is not the finger pointing to the moon It is the throat reaching for silver in the black sky The silver calling its brother needle home

Sometimes it is merely breath finding its way through a forest or through the halls as the libraries burn down Do not ask the poet to build your libraries for you Ask me about the fire

Tell the children this Tell the children poetry will not keep you alive when the bullets come

Sometimes howling is enough

mikael de lara co

The Russian Formalists

So much laceration in this world. So few leaves. A child holds his tongue and is sure to release it. If not now, then later, and almost never in song. We imagine his throat leaning towards anger and we lean back, reaching for the opposite of astonishment, hurrying to attach words to other words. Forgetting how, in the quietude of imagining, the snow, though distant, reveals a secret luminosity. Jakobson, after all, understood literature as "organized violence committed on ordinary speech." I imagine the child stripped from a breast, finding a lonely vowel meaning milk. Or the scholar, a century ago, walking the cratered streets of Moscow, thinking of flowers. Blue ones. Can anything be less violent? The minefields always find enough tenderness to welcome starlight. The heart, though dark, curls inside the hollow of a tree, looks around and sees something other than wound. Allows itself to be held.

In the dream house I kill every man who’s ever touched me. In the vacation house I settle for the women who didn’t care to. I will be every synonym of beautiful and hear about it ‘til the spit melts off the fingerprints on the paint on my skin.

I will live as kings and emperors once did, but call myself princess to candy my tyranny.

Some days I traffic pocket-sized Pollys and little ponies that used to be mine to Russia. Others, my hair is cut, unsexed with scissors made for noses. Some nights I unrape myself on the benign nub of a Ken I’ve undressed accordingly. The rest, I put on tulle dresses and sit on bathroom sinks.

Since when has pink not been a man’s color? Pink for pigs to butcher with Japanese steel Pink for salmon innards caught on hooks Pink as dog cocks on hot granite Pink as babies sewn deep inside pink swollen women; the first women we make playsets out of. Each woman after turns your pink a redder shade.

In a doll’s house you could gorge yourself and remain a figure plastic-fed. Any bad memory is fictioned away

emilio guballa to hell with work. i deserve to live like Barbie

as a rogue microplastic stuck in your head.

A drop of acetone in the face and all expression’s gone. Eyes unseeing, brows unbarbed, your chemical mouth becomes a wound healed.

Your heart is only what a child can project — You would flood the world with solvent to swim that far back, to before they filled your cast with you. Before the thing that you became became you, now cast in resin.

We all aspire to this.

A life printed in neon vinyl and adult child’s play. To know the shores burn to make more you, to imagine forests bled in the name of your pretty. My ego fed to and by the same gaze, a bear trap challenge, my red hands iron-cast in a velvet pink glove.

I make a silent petition where others pray, both of us selfish: ‘My life will be beautiful, or at the least everyone else’s will never be.’

I will be blood-sated and blonde in Malibu. Or else the markers, the kitchen lighter, and the scissors can unmake me. The trees are lucky I stand 11 inches.

odessa julienne rebaya

love is breathing (what i mean is that

it’s alive)

i once saw two old people buying clothes at a mall, smiling back at each other like they’ve been doing this since forever—like this is what they’ll be doing even in the years after the other’s death when i pass by the grocery, i always pick the fruits at the bottom of the stall.

i don’t know why, but i just think i like them better that way. this is also how my grandmother used to pick her watermelons. the ones at her bedside table when she died. i’ve always loved how she loves.

the world is one poem and each verse is a life told through footsteps. a rhythm as they call it. and i think footsteps are just heartbeats in disguise. always in motion. never stopping. only aching when they’ve been used a little too much than what they’re used to.

but what i really mean is, my mom tries on different pairs of shoes for hours and my dad waits for her. he follows her through every aisle of stilettos and kitten heels. he complains, yet is still there. he gets tired, but is still there. i think i won’t ever experience a love like my parents’. what i mean is that i’m not really fond of footwear shopping. but what i really meant was that i feel like no one has the patience to stay with me until it’s over—until i’m ready for it to be.

but there are people who still tie my shoelaces together even if i don’t ask them to and i think that’s enough to start. because love comes in multitudes. and is in every corner of the world. and on every chamber in your heart. what i mean is that i sometimes feel like abandoned fruit that longs to be loved. i crave for it and it’s disgusting, but that’s how i live. i live for what has never reached for me. i live to be in reach of it, then. is this a form of love or a survival instinct? who knows. i’m breathing just hard enough for it to be both.

julia

hao

Cunt

“oranges are sweet”

The day after my ninth birthday my father told me I was going to get sterilized. It was a simple procedure, he said. They tie little ribbons around the tubes that connect to my ovaries, and it’s done. Easy-peasy, lemon squeezy. Don’t be scared sweetheart, Mommy will hold your hand all the way through, then we’ll get Jollibee after.

This was before the government halted the practice of sterilizing people. No one really remembers this, or at least they don’t talk about it these days, but at that time, it was a law—a law that allowed people to rid themselves of the ability to reproduce and take part in “healing” the overpopulated country. Take charge, the pamphlets would say. Be a woman. Be a man. Get the procedure done today.

It was a law that covered all men and women, especially children, who are born with a healthy reproductive system, with the minimum age being 8 years old for men and any age for women as long as they have started menstruating.

It was a law that was meant to protect the country and to liberate the citizens.

The law also stated that, anyone above 18 already and is of sound mind and body, could proceed with the sterilization without their parents’ consent, or should the parents want the procedure for their child, consent would be needed from the child. Below 18, it is the parents or the guardian who makes the call. The child would get the procedure done, according to their parents, according to the government, according to what was best for them.

My parents, well, they never needed my consent. I was just nine, and I was only beginning to learn about my menstruation. Sex was nonexistent and babies came from birds or were picked up from the side of the road. I hadn’t even had my first crush yet. And yet— my parents decided to get me sterilized, because for some reason,

seeing nine-year-old me made them think, “if someone were to fuck her, there’s no way she should get pregnant. It’ll be the end of us.” And so, they did the paperwork and got them approved at the nearest municipal office. The government agreed, as they are lawfully required, to cover all the expenses, including my Jolly kiddie meal. The sterilization date was set, and that was the end of me.

“Is it going to hurt?” I asked my mother in the hospital changing room that day.

“No, sweetheart.” She turned me around and began tying the ribbons of my hospital dress. “Having babies hurts more.”

Scenes of a mother giving birth played in my head. I saw it in a commercial on TV once. I had to turn down the volume from 25 to 10 because the mother’s screams were so loud that the insides of my ears vibrated. It was a commercial meant to encourage young women to get sterilized. At the end of it, a woman’s silky voice said, “miracles should be painless—and that’s why I got sterilized. Book yours now. It’s easy. It’s painless. It’s a miracle—”

I turned off the TV in my head and asked my mother: “Did it hurt when you had me?”

My mother knelt on the alcohol-smelling floor. She had the same face as she would at church whenever the priest would lift the bread and everyone would look up from their pews after confessing their sins like they wanted mercy.

“Aww.” My mother pulled me into an embrace. “Of course, sweetheart.”

My arms weakly hugged her back.

“It hurt like hell when we had you.”

On the operating table, the doctors applied anesthesia on me, but they didn’t put me to sleep. Little curtains were draped over my chest so I couldn’t see how they opened me up and tied my tubes, and so with nothing interesting to stare at, I just closed my eyes and listened to my mother talk to the doctors and nurses in the operating room. I imagined them as puppets moving on my chest, right in front of the little green curtains, as if I were a theater stage. After a while, I started dozing off.

She’s just a kid, isn’t she, Yes, she is, but my husband decided it was for the best, Mm, I can understand, people just don’t know how to control themselves lately, right, That’s right, doctor, even I’m guilty of that, I had her when I was nineteen, Is that so, the doctor remarked, Well I’m glad it worked out for your family, but ehem, Yes, I see your point, doctor, Having kids in a world like this, selfish, if you ask me, that’s why I had my wife sterilized too, Didn’t she want kids, Not really, there were a lot of options anyway if ever we wanted kids, Oh yes I agree, my husband actually brought that up as well when we were discussing about pushing through with this, That’s good, that’s good, I’m glad you decided to push through with this, besides, your daughter can always adopt or opt for surrogacy, although the latter is a little frowned upon given that the point of all this is to lessen birthing new children, I understand, doctor, She can always just adopt if she wants children, Well we’re going to try our best not to give her that desire, Yes I understand, not all children are blessings, after all.

When I woke up, I was no longer on the operating table. I was neatly tucked in fresh, linen hospital sheets that made my feet colder and my whole body begging for home. The monotonous droning of the near-broken AC filled the room with cold, moist air, making the sheets feel damp to the skin. The room didn’t smell like alcohol or disinfectant spray. It smelled like fried chicken and sweet spaghetti, which came from a few meters away from me where a translucent plastic bag, with Jollibee’s face on it, sat warmly on a small table. Above it was a turned off CRT TV. I wanted to watch some cartoons. The room was dimly lit. The only light was the one above my bed, singling me out like a spotlight shining on an empty theater stage. Its white fluorescence made my skin pale and ghostly, almost as translucent as the plastic food bag. For a second, I pretended I was dead. Dead and awake, with both eyes opened. The operation failed and I suffered from a heart attack. This was heaven. This was hell. It was the hospital room that I slept in after this choice was made for me.

I don’t remember much about the healing after, just the hours I spent in bed, lying down and watching cartoons.

In between naps, I found myself telling time with what I would be doing if I were in school. I had been absent for a week, and none of my friends knew why. I didn’t even know what to tell them. I was sure they wouldn’t know what ‘sterilized’ meant, so I asked my mother what I should say if they asked.

“It means you can’t have babies anymore.”

“Forever?”

“Forever.”

“What if I want to have babies?”

“Sweetheart,” my mother tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, traced my jawline, and gently held my chin, “You don’t want to have babies.”

And that was decided for me. It was just like knowing who was allowed to borrow my crayons and my glue. At that time, I’ve never really held a baby or seen one up close. I saw them mostly on TV and in movies, and sometimes in the fetching area at school, but at that point, I didn’t know what it was like to have a baby or to be with one. So there were no second thoughts in that. I didn’t want to have babies because my mother said so.

At school, I told my classmates all about the operation and how I couldn’t have babies anymore. I was the first one to be sterilized among all of us in the class. Some of them had sterilization dates already, though, like Jessa who was set for the summer break and Trisha during Christmas. Does it hurt, they would ask. Everyone wonders if these things hurt, and no, it doesn’t. Not really. No. And yet, it does, when you finally understand.

But it would take years for that truth to grow within me. What I knew as a kid was that I had a gift—a precious, little gift—that my parents gave to me out of the kindness of their hearts because we love you, sweetheart, and we want you to enjoy your life with less burdens. That’s what I knew. That’s what they told me.

When things got lonely at home, I asked for a sibling. It was just too quiet during the weekends or in the slow afternoons when I would come home early from school.

The cartoon reruns on TV were getting boring as well, especially that I had no one to watch them with. The stillness of the house would be something so physical, like liquid, that it would feel as if I were swimming through the quietness and the motes of dust floating in the air. The loneliness would be so thick but none of my parents ever had time to cut through it. They would always have work to finish, meals to cook, rooms to clean, and each other to spend time with, as they would say. So I asked for company in the form of a sibling.

Why, sweetheart, I dunno, I’m just bored, I guess, Well, why don’t you invite one of your classmates over, But it’ll be over in a few hours, Then you can hang out again tomorrow, Why don’t we just do something together with daddy, Because we have work, sweetheart, and it’s too tiring to go out as a family, Then let’s go on Sunday, all you do on Sundays is take naps in your room together, Sweetheart, how many times do I have to say it, Why can’t I just have a sibling, Because daddy and I don’t want to take care of another baby, Why not, they’re cute and small and sometimes they poop but they’re fun to—, Because, sweetheart, babies need love and attention and daddy and I can’t give those anymore, Why not, Because we have you already, and you’re already enough, okay, Okay, Don’t be too sad, sweetheart, lots of children are happy being an only child, Okay, You know what, let me call Aya’s mom and ask her if you can stay over for the night so you have someone to hang out with, does that sound good, Mhm, Okay, good, I love you, sweetheart, I love you too, Now let me work.

And so the sleepovers became a regular thing. Once or twice a week I would come over to a friend’s house and spend the night there. Admittedly, I did feel less lonely and bored since it would be fun to talk about our classmates and teachers and to gossip about who liked whom and who cheated on the latest quiz. Homework would barely be done but the night would be less quiet with all the giggling and singing I would be doing with Aya, Pau, or whomever had parents willing enough to take me in for the night.

One night, just before summer break of grade 4, Mariel and I were just beginning to fall asleep when we started to hear repeated, long wails coming from outside of her bedroom window.

We guessed that it was probably a cat but since both of us have never heard a cat meow that long and that persistently, we decided to investigate. With a keychain flashlight about the size of a fat crayon, we looked for the cat outside her window, no longer feeling sleepy and only feeling determined to find out where the sound was coming from. Then on the mossy balcony of a neighbor’s house, we spotted two cats, one with orange and white fur and another with gray and white, with the gray cat hunched over the orange one who was lying down on its stomach, paws stretched out in front of them. The gray cat kept moving and adjusting its hips towards the orange cat’s rear while the orange cat kept wiggling towards the back and closer to the gray cat. They were taking turns in wailing.

They’re making kittens, Mariel said, Kittens, I asked, Yeah, that’s how cats make their babies, Like that, I asked, Yeah, like that, That’s weird, Not really, What do you mean, Well, that’s how people make babies too, Do they really do it like that, Well, yeah, but not always, Huh, Sometimes, the girl faces the guy and sometimes the girl gets on top of the guy, How do you know, I saw it on TV in my kuya’s room once when I accidentally played the DVD player, What did you see, Naked people, one woman and one man, Did you see their pee-pees, Obviously, they were naked, How do you know they were making babies, Well, the woman kept crying like the cats outside while the man put his thingy inside her and she kept saying come in me and make me pregnant, Is that really how people make babies, I guess so.

Outside, the two cats suddenly pushed each other away and ran off in separate directions. While Mariel and I waited to see if they were coming back, I slid my fingers under the hem of my shorts and panties and stopped near my hip bones. On either side, I felt my scars from the sterilization operation months ago (at that time), caressing them with the tips of my fingers and poking them a little, a habit I began to develop after they had properly healed. They were two small scars. As small as the hole of a five-centavo coin. In a few years, the doctor said, they would either dimple up or be totally gone. It would be like the operation never happened at all and I could confidently wear bikinis when I become a teenager.

He said I should be thankful that my mother was willing to pay some additional fees that the government didn’t cover so I could get that kind of surgery instead of the other one where they make a bigger scar on my stomach.

“Diba ikaw,” Mariel began as she turned off the flashlight. I guess the cats wouldn’t be coming back anymore. “You can’t have babies anymore, right?”

“Yeah.” I put down my shorts a little to show her my scars by the moonlight. “My parents had me sterilized.”

“Why did they do that?”

I shrugged. “To protect me, they said.”

I expected Mariel to ask me what my parents were protecting me from but instead she told me about how her kuya wanted to get sterilized too.

“He wanted to do it for his girlfriend,” Mariel said as we laid down back on her bed. “We were eating dinner and he told Mama and Papa he was going to get sterilized when he turns 18. When Papa asked him why, Kuya said he didn’t want to get his girlfriend pregnant in the future because she didn’t want kids. Then Papa got all annoyed and started raising his voice at Kuya because he wanted Kuya to have children in the future and it would be embarrassing and shameful for the family if other relatives found out that Kuya couldn’t bear kids.”

“Why would it be embarrassing?”

“I don’t know, but I think Papa said it was the man’s job to bring life into this world. Better the woman than the man, Papa said. It was more embarrassing if a man can’t get a woman pregnant than if a woman can’t get pregnant at all. Kuya started getting annoyed by then. Like really annoyed. Which I think made Papa more annoyed too. Si Mama naman, she kept telling Papa to stop talking because he was hurting Kuya and her feelings, but Papa went on and on about a man’s duties and how a woman should be in a marriage and in starting a family. And then Papa said something so surprising that I couldn’t believe he said that.”

“What did he say?”

Mariel scooted closer to me on the bed. “He said, ‘ang pukeng walang pakay ay puke pa rin, kaya mas mabuting ‘yang girlpren mo na lang ang magpa-opera kaysa ikaw!’ or something like that. I don’t remember his exact words. Anyway, Mama started crying after that and Kuya left the table. I kept eating but I just couldn’t believe he said ‘puke’!”

I didn’t say anything after, which, I think, Mariel didn’t mind. She kept quiet as well after that. I think we were getting sleepy, too, by that time.

Just before I fell asleep, however, Mariel suddenly spoke again.

“Do you want to have a boyfriend in the future?”

“Yeah, pwede naman.”

“Me too,” Mariel said. “I think it would be easier for you to get a boyfriend though.”

“Why is that?”

“I heard guys like sterilized girls more.”

“Why?”

But no reply came from her side of the bed.

When the baby-bra days started, something shifted in the world around me. It was all attention at first. My mother made time to take me to SM department stores to buy me my first set of baby-bras. You’re a woman now, she said, and it’s a whole different world out there, sweetie, and I’m just glad your daddy and I have less to worry about. Then she placed a youthful hand on my hip and then, with her thumb, she caressed the spot where my scars were. That was counting my blessings. When my scars were touched, I was remembering my gift.

In school, I had my first crush. His name was Oliver. He was a year and two months older than me, and back in grade 3 he used to pull the ends of my hair, absentmindedly, when he was seated behind me. He was our class president in grades 4 and 5, and he always made the Top 10, a few numbers behind me always. He got along with the rowdy boys, but he remained respectable and handsome in my eyes anyway. He could play guitar and read English well. I knew I loved him when I still got butterflies even after he got a barber’s cut for school.

In grade 6, while in line for the flag ceremony, he accidentally brushed his elbow on my boob. He smirked and said sorry. I blushed and I figured he liked me. After all, no touches are accidental, Pau said. So, for Valentine’s that year, I made him lunch—two pieces of hotdogs from breakfast, fried rice that was beginning to become stale, and a rose-shaped chocolate bar that I bought from an old woman by the school gate—and just like what my mother does for me and my father, I packed it with love inside a Tupperware. I gave it to him in the auditorium at lunch when no one was there, and he hugged me, said thank you with my name, and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

Can I hug you again, he asked, Okay, I said, I like hugging you, I like hugging you too, Thank you again for the lunch, You’re welcome, You’re just so soft when I hug you, like your chest is so soft, Thank you, Can I touch it, Okay, Nice, I’ve never touched a girl’s boobs before, Mm, Thank you for letting me touch them, You’re welcome, Can you, uh, take off your blouse, I wanna feel them some more, if that’s okay, Okay, but what if someone comes in, It’s okay, I’ve locked the doors, Okay, Don’t worry, Okay, Here, let me hold your blouse and help you with your bra, Thank you, Your heart is beating so fast, Oh sorry, No it’s okay, Mmm Oliver, You feel so good, Thank you, Can I put my mouth on it, Mm okay, Nice, Hey Oliver, Yeah, Does this mean you’re my boyfriend now, Yeah sure. We left the auditorium separately, with him leaving first.

After school, I came home with a sticky, wet feeling between my legs. It’s as if all the butterflies in my stomach had melted, like ice cream, and had dripped down to my crotch. It felt good, the rush of it all. Everyone talks about wanting to be loved, and how it was supposed to complete you, but I’ve never heard anyone talk about wanting to be wanted. And that was exactly how I felt. I was wanted, and it was like a latch had opened deep inside my heart; it twisted and turned, unbolted and unshackled, then finally a click—and it set me free.

In front of the mirror in my own bedroom, I stripped down from my uniform. Oh-so carefully, as if my hands were Oliver’s, I untied the plaid ribbon around my collar and unbuttoned my blouse.

I unclasped the hook on my skirt and zipped down, exposing myself in front of myself. Standing there, in my baby-bra and pink So-En underwear with printed cartoon flowers, I saw that I still had a child’s body. Nothing like the women in the FHM magazines that the boys in our class secretly brought to school. There was a little embarrassment in that, because how can I ever be wanted with this body? So I took off my baby-bra and underwear. My breasts were starting to look plumper and better shaped, still bigger than the rest of the girls in our class, and my privates were beginning to look more mature. I felt a little more grown seeing myself naked.

On both sides of my hips, my sterilization scars were lightening, but to the touch, they still haven’t flattened. They were like tiny hills on my skin.

With my fingers around my hips and my thumb caressing one scar, I remembered Oliver’s hand gripping my hips as he put his mouth on my nipple earlier that day. The butterflies were melting. Something was unlatching. My hand was lowering and lowering and lowering— Perhaps that was the freedom my mother kept telling me.

It was true, what Mariel said, by the way. When our boobs fully grew and our hips widened and we finally started high school, the guys really paid more attention to me and the other girls who got the operation done a few years back, when compared to the girls who hadn’t. It was all for sex, of course. I knew that well enough, especially after we began talking about reproductive systems in science class and after me and Mariel started sneaking around in her kuya’s room to watch his porn. We never touched ourselves while watching, at least not when we were together. We mostly watched to learn. You know, the dynamics of it. The art of it. The politics of it. The shame of it. The truth was that guys just love it when they could cum on and in you. It’s territorial. Primal. Let me fill you, baby. Let me own every part of you. More importantly, they just love it more when they know they have what it takes to get you pregnant, to put life in you, if they had the chance. But of course, at the end of the day, they never want the children. They want the idea of it. They only want the power.

And so they crave my body, my mouth, and my cunt. I was but a vessel of their power. I held and tasted their desire. I had what it takes to be the cool girl who could give you a good time. They wanted me and they got me—and that gave me my power.

Looking back, it was just a longing to be seen. To be looked at. To be recognized. Not just by men, but by anyone, really.

Look at me, look at me, look at me.

So I got the grades, the rank ones and twos, hoping my mother and my father would be proud of me and take me to that celebratory dinner where we could all sit down and eat at the same time.

I bought the makeup and the magazines, and my girlfriends and I took all the Cosmopolitan quizzes to find out which kind of kisser we are and which sex position fit our personality the best, then we all taught each other how to sway our hips and flip our hair the right way to get all the boys’ attention.

That’s what existing felt. When boys or men stared at me, I existed. When they wanted me, I existed. When they fucked me, I existed. I love you, they would say. And their love tasted like skin, saliva, and cum. Love was teeth and tongue and how they grazed me all over like I’m a ripened fruit. That was my existence. Other than that, I was nothing but a piece of pussy waiting to put on that sundress again for the summer or the weekend, the one that I secretly bought off at Avon from a neighbor because I loved its creamy white shade and the small printed roses on it and how the straps were self-tied, because I knew—and I imagined it in my head—that when men see me in that dress, they’ll be untying those ribbons and kissing the slope of my neck to my shoulders in their minds. I see everything in their eyes. The desire. The hunger.

It's an opportunity to exist, to be looked at, to be seen—so when the boys and the men come, if I could, I would tilt my head down, not too much but just enough to give me that air of shyness, and then I would hold their gaze and find existence. I am doe-eyed and innocent, with cum-white skin and blowjob-red lips. And then at night, in my own bed, a friend’s, or a lover’s, I would feel like a god, in a way that I was finally believed in.

Then in the middle of all this, the sterilizations stopped.

It was around third-year high school—long after Oliver and I broke up, long after some summer flings—and I was at Mike’s place. His senile lola owned the house, and it certainly smelled that way from what I remember, like dried fruits and old bamboo, and his lola liked blasting the TV at full volume. The newscasters and the commercial narrators’ voices pounded at my eardrums, but the loudness always helped hide the sound of kissing and sucking.

Mike and I were making out on an old, latticed chair, with his hands already exploring underneath my uniform when I heard the news.

Wait, stop, stop, What’s wrong, Let me listen to this for a minute, Nagmomomol tayo and then you’re going to listen to the news, Yes, now shush, gimme a minute, I wanna hear this, Okay sure, Fuck, What, They really repealed it, They what, The government is stopping the sterilizations, What does that mean, I guess they’re no longer allowing children to get sterilized and they’re no longer funding the adults who want to, Ahhh, okay, why, Aren’t you listening, It’s sexier when you explain it, Fine, okay, So why are they stopping, I don’t know really, I think it’s because of all the protests all these years, Ah, yeah I see those protests on the papers time to time, Yeah, and I guess it’s also because we’re no longer overpopulated, Makes sense, now, can we make out again, I can’t believe the sterilizations are actually stopping, Mmm, is it because you got sterilized, No, no, no, I don’t know, I think it’s just—ahh, Mike—I, uh, thought this was gonna be a part of our lives forever, Okay okay, well, aren’t you glad you’re sterilized, Yeah, I’m happy—don’t leave a hickey there, Mmm, that means you can’t get pregnant, right, Mm yes, Even if I shoot it in you, you won’t get pregnant, right, Mmm no—ahh, Good, because that’s exactly what I wanna do to your tight little cunt right now.

Fifteen minutes later, foreplay included, I was already wiping off the semen on my chest and stomach while me and Mike laid on his bed. My mouth tasted like skin after all the kissing and dick- and finger-sucking. Mike’s cum was already trickling out of me slowly, and I wanted to go to the bathroom to wash it off quickly, but Mike had his

sweaty arm over my stomach. His hand, which was just playing with a nipple, slowly moved down to my hips to thumb at my scar.

“Did it hurt?”

“When I fell from heaven? No. When I had sex for the first time? A little—”

“Ha-ha,” Mike said, sarcastically. “I meant when you got this.”

“I don’t remember. I was asleep when it all happened.”

Mike nodded and continued drawing circles around the scar. I was getting a little impatient and uncomfortable. The stickiness of it all made me cringe a little, so I finally got up and swung my legs over the bed, my back turned at him.

“Do you ever think about wanting kids in the future?” Mike asked Standing up, I could feel the semen gush out a little bit faster. It was a good feeling, though, having them orgasm inside of me. Other girls in my place would be coming home right now, praying to God they won’t get pregnant. Well, I had my freedom, my ways of existing. I could hold my belly knowing it’ll never hold a kid inside it. My body can never take a sperm and let an egg cell meet it. They’ll never make that “miracle of life,” and my body will never be a testimony of it. It will never be in pain because it will never give birth. My skin will always be young and unmarked, as my mother says, and my breasts will always be perfect, plump, and balanced. My nipples will always be flat for they will never nurse and nourish a baby that I could call mine. These will never happen for me, and that was my gift, my blessing, and my freedom. I will never know my children and they will never know me.

“No,” I said. “I don’t think about them at all.”

Before I knew it, high school was over. It went by like a gentle wind sliding against your skin on a hot summer day, so slow and yet so fast, like when you’re trying to recall how it just felt. It was like the emptiness I’d feel whenever I’d come home after staying over at a boyfriend’s place and I’d be in my own bed; it would be a relief that I could finally lie down somewhere where the outline on the mattress is familiar, but I’d find myself going back to the night before when, right after all the foreplay and the sex and the round twos, I would be

in another’s bed with their head on my chest and their arm around my waist. We would smell like each other for the time being, and I would hold them like how I wish my mother held me during thunderstorms, with my own arm around their head and my hand gently tousling their hair. In those moments, time would melt so slowly, like candle wax. And then the night passed and I come home to my parents’ house. They never asked where I’d been, only if I had fun. I would nod and go to my room and think about how that’s all over now and I’ll be waiting again for another chance to leave the silence of our house. The candle wax has hardened and I’m all alone again.

That was high school. It had its fun—like when Pau’s ex-boyfriend, the captain of the school’s basketball team, took me to prom, and, after we had won the Prom King & Queen title together, took me skinny dipping in their private village, in his three-story house with a pool, and finally took me to bed—and then it had its morning afters, like when Pau poured all her Coleman’s contents on me the day after the prom and after finding out I slept with Danny during their “cool-off” period.

I never slept over at her place again, nor at Danny’s. She never spoke to me again, not even at graduation, and I never spoke to her as well, although I badly wanted to tell her that I’m sorry and that I missed her. Anyway, she and Danny got back together a month after the Coleman incident. It was also the day we took college entrance exams in school.

Months later, I got accepted into UPD and ADMU, the only universities I applied to, and my parents were as proud as any parent who only ever looked at your report card and never your birthday cards for them. Well done, sweetheart, they said, we’ll help you look for a place of your own soon, para hindi ka uwian when college starts. My parents loved giving me freedom. It was their love language to let me do whatever I wanted. That was their gift to me. That was my blessing, as they told me. And so it was. So I wanted it to be.

Summer was hot and silent, like a cathedral in the middle of a weekday afternoon, and so it felt solemn to me as well. I didn’t have the energy to leave the house nor go out with friends. Maybe it was penance, my way of repenting from what I had done to Pau when I couldn’t say my apology.

Whatever it was, I found an interesting way to pass the time. I began rereading my science textbooks, flipping to the reproductive systems section, and refreshing my memory about pregnancy and motherhood. I looked at anatomical photos of a pregnant woman’s belly and tried to imagine what it was like to have all my abdominal organs pushing at each other because a baby was taking up the space below. I looked at fetal growth charts and found it intriguing how such a small clump of cells could bear my own face despite its size. And I understood it a little, why they say it’s a miracle to carry a child in your belly. I believe it’s like learning to love. To truly and selflessly love.

Perhaps it’s like how my mother tried to tell me she loved me by bringing me an orange in my room. The orange was unpeeled, plump, and unbruised. It was on a saucer that she loved so much; I know that because she always uses it for her morning coffee and afternoon biscuits. The orange rolled around the saucer as my mother walked in. Then she placed it on my study table and sat on my desk chair, all while she told me that the orange was a gift from a colleague who owned a fruit farm in the province. I was on my bed listening to a mixtape an ex gave.

“Alam mo,” my mother began.

I took off my headphones and sat up, crossing my legs.

“Dito kita ipinaglihi.”

“On an orange?”

She nodded with a small smile on her face. Beads of sweat rested on the skin on top of her upper lip.

“I must’ve eaten at least thirty of these when I was pregnant with you. I was just always craving for oranges, just thinking about its tanginess and sweetness, and wanting to put a little salt on it. I would beg your father to go to the palengke after his last class to buy a whole

kilo of oranges for me. And then when he comes home to our small, small apartment back then, he would peel them from me.”

“That’s nice” was all I could say. It had been a while since she talked to me this long.

“Your Lola Rita would always say you’d be born with a very round face and big pores, just like an orange. I didn’t believe any of it, of course. You know me, I don’t believe in stuff like those. And then you came! And oh, sweetheart, your face was so, so round and so red.”

I gave an acknowledging giggle.

The room was gummy with the heat, as if I lived inside a microwave that was just used. It also felt full. Full of heat and molecules and awkwardness. Perhaps it was my mother’s presence, but I suddenly felt aware of my ears. It was probably just the humidity.

“And now, you’re all grown.” She stared at me like she was adoring me, smiling with her eyebrows lifted in nostalgia. “‘Di na rin bilugan mukha mo. And you’re going off to college in a few months.”

I nodded shyly, not really knowing what to say, and looked down at my crossed legs.

My mother, then, took the orange. She pierced the top with her nails, breaking the skin. She peeled, like she had done this a hundred times, pulling the skin of the orange continuously with her thumb and the base of her forefinger.

“I…” my mother began. Her eyes quickly looked down and moved side to side, like she had forgotten what to say and was reading a script from the floor. “I’m really happy you get to enjoy your youth with less anxieties. Aren’t you?”

“I am.”

“Me too, sweetheart.”

When the orange was bare, she began picking at the white piths with her nails, plucking them into long spongy strings and then piling them with the orange peels. This took a while, or at least it felt it did, but I couldn’t bear to interrupt her. The way she cleaned the orange of its piths was careful and almost loving. She didn’t just pick at a pith and pulled, no, she made sure she was picking at the thickest end of a pith before pulling so carefully. I watched the skin of her finger barely

turn white with pressure. Her knuckles were barely articulated with the gentleness of her pulling. Then when she was satisfied, she placed the smoothened orange, perfect and naked, back on her beloved saucer.

“Eat up, sweetheart,” my mother said as she stood up from my desk chair. “The oranges are sweet.”

After she had left my room, I took the orange into my hands, inspecting its bareness. It looked so beautiful and pure, like a freshly birthed planet. On the pads of my thumbs, the orange felt firm and juicy.

Then I took a slice, separating it from its family, and I held it with my fingers. It looked just like an eight-week-old fetus with seeds for a heart.

I began to eat the orange, slice per slice. I ate it all in one sitting, taking my time, just like my mother did when she picked at the piths, and feeling each moment my teeth penetrated the thin film covering the orange’s pulpy flesh. Despite what my mother said about the orange being sweet, I had gotten a sour one. I didn’t mind, not after everything she did to peel it so perfectly. Then I spat out the seeds— the hearts—with my tongue and my lips onto her beloved saucer where the rest of the orange’s carcass was piled.

By the last slice, I took a good look at it once again and still saw the same thing. An eight-week-old fetus. I put it in my mouth and began chewing. I started to cry. *

angela lanuza

Lost Women

i needed to get rid of the thing inside me. Yesterday, the facility doctor told me that I was thirteen weeks along and that I would start showing soon. He told me that I’d feel it move by eighteen weeks. He made me listen to its heartbeat and marvel at the beauty of life, of the gift that God had given me. All I could hear was a death march. I know I didn’t imagine the narrowing of his eyes when he saw the bruises on my stomach. He doesn’t comment on them, thankfully. He asked instead if I’d been sleeping well. He told me to eat more foods with vitamin A and C, fiber, and protein. He said he’s going to suggest to the kitchen staff to make them more available to me and to the other mothers. He told me I’m too skinny. The morning sickness took away my appetite. He told me that his mother told him to tell other mothers to eat only egg whites if they wanted light-skinned babies. He laughed after he told me this. I just stared at him.

My Lola Carmen would be disappointed with me if she knew I was being so rude. Ever since I was little, she would tell me that my smile was a gift that I should give often. She always told me that my smile would one day capture the heart of a handsome man. She would probably think this doctor was handsome. Tall. Long and pointed nose. The kind of skin you see on foreign movie actors. He had a polite smile but I didn’t trust him. I clutched the wooden cross at my neck. The only thing I was allowed to keep from the outside world. The only connection I had left from my grandmother. I wonder if she had already gone to the market. Her glasses didn’t help her see better anymore. I helped her pick the right vegetables and right meat, and maneuver the streets, and avoid bumps on the sidewalk. I often joked that I was her eyes. She answered that I was her heart.

The only way I can get back to my grandmother is if I get rid of the thing inside me. I don’t care about what the Bible says about babies.

I wasn’t carrying a baby. It was a kidney stone or fat building inside an artery, a sickness, a sickness that I needed to be cured from. It never wanted this. I didn’t choose this.

I lie still on my small metal bed, waiting for the morning bell to ring. I stay still because one move elicits a noise from the rusted springs. I didn’t want the others to wake up. My eyes remain closed because I have to look asleep. Regina told me that there were cameras everywhere. If I was awake when I was supposed to be asleep, the Brothers and the Sisters would know. They’ll give me a lash on the arm for it. You earn three lashes and you’re going to be presented in the colosseum. You keep earning lashes or you do something extremely unforgivable and you might disappear.

The moments before the bell rings are the only time I have to myself. The only time I can think and know that my thoughts are my own. The rest of the day is filled with the voices of the Sisters and the Brothers. When the bell rings, the door to the bathroom opens. I wear my uniform even as I bathe. I lightly scrub soap on my stomach. I told the doctor that the bruises didn’t hurt anymore but they did. When I stood from my bed, when I stood for too long, when I crouched down, I’d feel a sting so sharp that it was as if I was still being kicked over and over again.

After thirty minutes, the door to the hallway opens. The girls and I walk in a straight line to the cafeteria, named the Cornucopia. All the places in the facility had names, the garden was Eden, the classrooms were alphabetical (Antioch, Bethlehem, Canaan, and so on). Regina and I wore the same uniform, a light pink collared blouse and a skirt that ended below the knees, and a pair of white rubber shoes. It identified us as pregnant women. The prostitutes wore apple red, and the insurgents wore washed-up gray. We weren’t allowed to speak or come near those outside of our group.

The cafeteria at St. Agnes’s Home for Lost Women was a great big hall, the high ceilings and stone walls were painted sky blue with puffs of white clouds scattered around, peeking behind the clouds were little cherubs—blonde, brown, and black curly hair, dimples, and innocent smiles. Across the left wall was the verse, in bold letters,

And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. Genesis 3:13. There was a guard in every corner of the room, a gun at their side, a baton in their hands.

I sat at the same table as Regina’s friends. None of us could ever talk about what we wanted to really talk about. Regina’s friends devised a way to speak their truth without actually saying it. The first time we met, Regina gave me a crumpled piece of paper. It was torn from the journal that was given to us when we entered the facility. The journal we use for taking down our notes for classes and our prayers. I remember her loopy handwriting translating everything she and the girls were saying. If Grace said that she admired Sister Beatrice, she was saying that the woman was a bitch. If Susy talked about how she was learning a lot from our re-education classes, she meant that whatever they taught us was bullshit. They taught me those bad words. Lola would call them unladylike.

Regina told me to swallow the paper later that night. We couldn’t leave any evidence, she said. We couldn’t let them win, she said. I couldn’t understand how she could speak of The Order as if they were evil. I knew that Regina had lost her way when we entered high school, missing church, cutting classes, flirting with boys. But, I didn’t know that her rebellious streak would turn into blasphemous acts. The Order of Maria Magdalena was an affiliate of the Church. They’ve been around since Spanish times. They ended the plague of witchcraft that our ancestors practiced. They made sure that we all followed the will of God. They were the heads of our schools. They were advisers to our politicians. Our president is very proud of his close relationship with The Order’s leader. They enacted the president’s abstinence campaign, which was supposed to counter the new disease that was spreading in the country. There were news reports of pregnant women dying by the thousands every day.Scientists and researchers couldn’t figure out why. The most accepted reason was that some women were just stronger and better suited for pregnancy. Others said that it was like cancer, abnormal cells multiplying where they shouldn’t, a thing growing where it shouldn't.

I was part of The Order’s youth division, every school had one. We were the eyes and ears of The Order. We arranged events where we would invite a representative of The Order to come and speak to the students. We planned donation drives and outreach programs for the poor. Well, we made the money and The Order made sure to take it where it was needed. I was the secretary because I had clean handwriting and I was organized. I was a good example for all the girls in school. I had good grades. I never raised my voice. I followed and never questioned the teachers. I wanted to be like the Sisters of The Order. Humble. Generous. Kind. I wanted to be like the Magdalenas, the largest women’s group in the country. Their most prominent members were the wives of politicians, doctors, lawyers, architects, engineers, and businessmen. They knew their place and they did it well. They bore the children of our country’s leaders. All the girls wanted to be like them. Regina made fun of me for wanting to be like them, for being the way that I am.

I miss who I was. I can’t help but compare myself to Regina and her friends. Regina was a wild child. She bought forbidden contraband from some underground market—makeup, cigarettes, and marijuana. She needed this place to get her life together. Grace was something the church would call unnatural. She liked having relations with other women. I couldn’t believe it when Regina wrote it down for me the first time and I still couldn’t believe it now. She got pregnant by some process called IVF. She went through it in the States. She and her girlfriend wanted to start a family. I had nothing against her as a person. I just knew what was wrong and right. The other girl, Susy, was a prostitute. Regina told me her father made her be one for years. During one of her gimmicks, The Order found her and took her off the streets. When she got here, they found out she was pregnant. My Lola would have had a heart attack if she knew the kind of people I sat next to during meals. But, I needed them. Regina told me that they might know a way for me to get out. I just needed to earn their trust.

I wasn’t the best at making friends. Even at school, I stayed around the other members of the Magdalena Youth. Lola told

me I needed to surround myself with good people from good backgrounds. By this, she meant anyone but Regina. Lola always said that Regina was the way that she was because her mother worked too much at the office and her father couldn’t control his wife or his daughter. My Lola wasn’t an easy person to please. You either fit her standards or she wouldn’t bother with you at all.

After breakfast, we had our re-education classes that prepared the girls for assimilation. It wasn’t very different from school. We were reminded that Eve, the first woman, brought sin to humankind. All women are born with the great capacity to sin, as we inherited it from her. It was our job to fight against these urges, to triumph against them. The Sisters taught us how to be good mothers. We practiced how to swaddle and how to burp on plastic baby dolls. They taught us the proper way to sew, to cook, to clean. How to sit, stand, speak like a truly feminine woman. The Brothers would give lessons on the bible. Today, it was Brother Elijah. He talks about the mothers in the bible, Sarah, Rebekah, Bathsheba, Elizabeth, Mary. How we should be like them, though we are nothing like them. He shares with us that he has two daughters. He tells us that he talks to his daughters about us. How he hopes that they never end up like us. He tells us that we are sinners for not guarding our virginity. He tells us that we are sinners for bearing children out of wedlock. He tells us that our children will suffer for our mistakes. I look at Grace, who sat at the seat on my right. Her pale skin had gone paler and she looked like she was on the verge of tears. Susy sat at my left, her face bore no evidence of what she was feeling, though I could see the slight shaking of her hands.

Brother Elijah tells us to repeat after him. I am sinful. I am broken. God can fix me. God loves me.

After classes, we had lunch. Since it was Friday, after lunch, we were headed to the colosseum. I’d asked the girls about it the first time I had heard of it. None of them wanted to talk about it. The colosseum was essentially a huge circular auditorium. The seats all faced the center of the room, where the ground rose into a stage. On the walls, in the same cursive as found in the cafeteria, said, The LORD preserveth all them that love him: but all the wicked will he destroy. Psalms 145:20.

The girls and I were seated at the farthest part of the room, so much so that we had to squint to see what was happening on stage. The lights dimmed, but a spotlight remained on the stage. There were guards stationed around the room. The doors opened and another guard escorted a group of handcuffed women. Two wore pink. Four wore red. Seven wore gray. I could see three lashes on all their arms. Some even limped. Some had bruises on their faces. I noticed that one in a pink uniform walked with her head held high.

Once they were in a horizontal line on the stage. The doors opened again to reveal Brother Elijah. It reminded me of mass when the priest is always the last to enter. He held a bible in his hands as he walked ceremoniously to the stage.

“Today, we punish the wicked and exact the Lord’s righteous justice,” he bellowed.

The crowd was silent.

“Before you, stand your sisters who have disobeyed The Order, who have brought shame to themselves and to your sex!”

He looks at the woman at the end of the line and calls her name.

He tells her to kneel and places the bible in her hands. He tells us that she was caught reading forbidden literature. She will be whipped once for each page that she has read. When she was caught, she had read fifty pages. Brother Elijah nods at the guard. The guard goes to stand behind the woman and proceeds to slash the whip across her back.

The sound of it echoed around the room. I could barely breathe.

The woman screamed and screamed for someone to help her. Nobody moved. Everyone was rooted to their seats, frozen. We watched as blood began to pool around her knees, as the tears and the snot rained down her face. When it was over, Brother Elijah turned her around so we could see the wrangled mess of her back.

It reminded me of the pigs that hung from metal hooks in the market.

It reminded me of the first time I saw a dead body.

I was thirteen. It was almost night, the sky was the color of a fresh bruise, dark purple nearing black. Lola and I were walking home from

the hair salon, chatting every now and then, about how the summers got hotter and hotter, how the prices of meat got higher and higher. We stopped in front of Heaven’s Burgers, the cheapest and most delicious burger stop in the city. While the cook was preparing Lola’s original burger and my cheeseburger, I looked around the street. There was a woman lying down in front of a lamppost. She wore a bright pink tank top and short shorts. The smell was every rotten thing mixed together but much much worse. When I got closer, I saw that her eyes were open, still brown with a slight film over them. I wonder what the last thing she saw was.

I looked down and covered my mouth in shock and disgust. Her bluish skin was cut from the throat all the way to her crotch, blood oozing, organs missing, flies circling her nostrils, and her mouth, frozen in a scream. On her arm, I read the word, puta. I felt a grumble in my stomach, I turned my head and expelled every meal I had today on the road. The vomit joined the pool of blood.

“Mariana, stay away from that!” My Lola whisper-shouted as she walked to my side. She barely spared the woman a glance, instead, she looked me in the eyes. “That’s what happens to girls who don’t follow the rules.”

As I grew older, I learned that bodies were dumped everywhere in this city. At the back of the grocery store. At the front of my school. In the middle of the road. Most drivers don’t even stop, they just run them right over, bones breaking, skin flattening until they looked like a huge wad of brown gum stuck on the cement. The president told the public to leave them to the garbage collectors, anyone caught near them or trying to bury them gets arrested. These aren’t people, he said. Enemies of the State. Prostitutes. All of them were cut in the same way. Just like the first woman I saw, most bodies had words carved into the stomach, or arms, usually on the forehead, for everyone to see. Puta. Malandi. Makati. Madumi. Makasalanan.

The other women were punished in the same way. One was found trying to sneak out after bedtime. One talked back against one of the Sisters during class. One was caught stealing bread from the kitchens. The last one tried to manipulate a guard into helping her send a message to her boyfriend.

The last one wore a pink uniform, there was a big bump on her stomach. Two guards held her arms as she struggled against them. She was kicking and screaming obscenities. When they finally forced her to kneel and hold the bible. I narrowed my eyes and realized it was Regina. Her hair was out of its usual severe ponytail, matted and all over the place. There was dried blood at the edges of her uniform's sleeves.

She slept on the bed on the right side of mine. It had been empty for days. Susy told me that she must have been given some sort of time out and taken to a meditation room or something. At the time, I took her words literally. Now, I realized that she meant the opposite.

The first crack of the whip shook Regina's whole body. I didn’t know if I was imagining it but I saw the guard hesitate. Brother Elijah gave him a look. He mumbled something to Regina before he raised his hand again to deliver another strike.

She didn’t scream. She looked straight ahead, her head held high. One after the other struck her back.

At my side, Grace was howling, begging them to stop. Susy was trying to calm her down, telling her to lower her voice unless she wanted to be next.

Regina and I were neighbors. No, we were best friends. There was a mango tree that stood between our houses. When the fruits were ripe, we’d climb the branches and pick as many as we could carry. When her parents scolded her for her stubborn attitude or her failing grades, she’d invite me to join her at the highest branch, where we could see the tops of the houses in our subdivision and the little rectangular buildings in the city.

We grew apart once we reached high school. She found herself a boyfriend and spent most of her time with him. I joined the youth division of The Order of Maria Magdalena. We didn’t talk as often as we did because Lola told me to stay away from girls like her. I remember the day she told me she was pregnant. I had just gotten home from church with my grandmother. I was part of the choir. She was sitting at the foot of the mango tree, staring at some faraway thing. The clouds were turning gray and I went out to tell her to go inside.

When she saw me, her mouth curved into a smile and she motioned for me to sit next to her. She was planning to run away with her boyfriend, to go live in his home province where his family had a farm. She told me that she was excited to be a mother.

She told me she wouldn’t be like her mother.

She’d let her child wear whatever they wanted. Become whoever they wanted. I asked her what she would do if she caught the disease, the same one that took my Mama from me, the same one that kept taking our classmates’ aunts and mothers and sisters. She didn’t care. She didn’t listen. She was too happy to listen. I couldn’t let her die. I couldn’t let her throw her life away.

I was the one that reported her to The Order. I thought it was the right thing to do. They told me it would be the right thing to do. I did this to her. I brought her to this hell hole.

Without thinking, I sprinted down the stairs and made my way to the stage. I yelled her name at the top of my lungs. Regina. Regina. Regina. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I tried to crawl my way up the stage. I needed to get to her. I needed to save her. I couldn’t let her die.

Hands gripped my upper arms, pulling me back. One hand tried to cover my mouth., I sunk my teeth into soft skin and tasted the metal tang of blood. The guard growled and gripped his fingers. He called me a bitch. I spat at his face. He took the baton that was stuck to his side and raised it above my head. Everything went black before my body hit the ground.

I dreamed about the day my grandmother told me about how my mother died. I was six years old. We were in my room, folding the laundry together. She taught me the fastest way to fold shirts. She moved her hands around so much I got lost.

“Pretend that your fingers are birds,” she said. “The first bird is at the top of the shirt. The second bird is in the middle of the shirt—”

“What are the birds’ names?” I asked.

“Yan-yan and Celia,” Lola answered.

“Hey, that’s my name!” I exclaimed.

“Yes, now pay attention, Yan-yan will fly to the bottom of the shirt and Celia will meet Yan-yan on the other side, and together they will

guide the shirt back to the ground, tucking the left sleeve in, safe and sound.”

“Lola, I did it!”

“Of course, you did, my little bird,” Lola smiled and stroked my hair.

“But, who is Celia?”

Lola’s hand stilled on top of my head. She was quiet for a while.

“She was your Mama, hija.”

“I had a Mama?”

“Of course! Jesus had a Mama, you know.”

“Did she carry me in her belly too?”

“Yes.”

“Where is she, Lola?”

My grandmother took a deep breath. Her eyes were shiny and she sniffed her nose. “She bled a whole ocean just to give birth to you. When you left her body, her beautiful brown skin, beautiful, just like yours, turned to dust and drifted off into heaven.”

“Whenever a soft breeze tickles your nose.” She pinched my nose.

I laughed and squirmed away from her. “Or cools your heated skin or brushes past you in the night, that is your Mama, saying hello, saying I am here, saying I love you.”

My eyes felt like bricks upon my head but I forced them open. I squinted at the fluorescent lights. I was in a white room. The air smelled like rubbing alcohol. I was in the clinic. Grace and Susy sat on the plastic chairs at the side of the bed.

“How do you feel?” Grace asked.

“How do you think, Gracie? She’s been unconscious for a whole day!” Susy snapped.

“Sorry, I didn’t know what else to say. Congratulations for waking up hardly seemed appropriate.”

I snorted. I failed to control my lips from forming a slight smile.

“See. I told you I could make her laugh,” Grace said.

Susy rolled her eyes.

“Where’s Regina?” I asked.

The two women looked at each other, then looked around the room. Susy shook her head. It wasn’t safe to talk about this out in the open. With the stunt I pulled, I didn’t need to give The Order more reasons to punish me.

“She’s probably sleeping somewhere. You know how she loves her beauty sleep,” Grace said nervously.

Translation: The Order still has her. We don’t know when we’ll see her again. We’re terrified.

“Speaking of which, you should get some rest too,” Susy said.

Translation: Don’t do anything stupid. We can’t lose you too.

“Do you want us to leave you be?” Gracie asked.

I realize just how alone I’d been for so long. My grandmother made me go straight home after my meetings with the Magdalena youth so there was never a chance to just talk. My only real friend was Regina and I betrayed her. I know it’s awful and selfish and horrible but I couldn’t tell them the truth. I needed them. I didn’t want to be alone. Not anymore.

“Please stay,” I croaked. My throat felt scratchy and dry as if I swallowed a whole desert.

They smiled at me. I didn’t deserve it but I soaked up their warmth. They fill the silence with stories.

Grace tells me about her best friend. How they met at the school library where Grace went to study abroad in the States. They both grabbed the same book from the shelf. They decided to share the book. Grace would have it on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. She would have it on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. They both knew it was just an excuse to keep seeing each other. And, the rest was history, as they say.

“It was a good thing that I went home. I love my baby and I wanted to tell my parents about her. The Order told me that my parents told them to meet me at the airport.” She doesn’t have to say that her parents sold her out. She doesn’t have to say that she hasn’t seen her partner since. I could hear the sadness in her voice. I saw her gripping the blanket on top of me, her knuckles white.

Susy tells me about her happiest memories of her father. Her father liked to give her little gifts every now and then. Sometimes, it was banana cue, halo-halo, or pandesal. Sometimes, it was a hair tie or a new pair of slippers. She remembers when she was five years old, her father punished her for disobeying him. She probably forgot to buy rice from the sari-sari store or forgot to wash a shirt that he wanted to wear, she no longer remembered the exact details. But, hours later, she was crying outside their house. Her father went up to her and gave her a banana cue. She remembered the sweetness of the hardened sugar and the ripe softness of the banana. Even when he sold her, he kept giving her gifts as a reminder of his love for her.

Susy tells her story in a flat voice, with no hint of emotion. She stared at the floor when she spoke. You could feel her pain in the long pauses between her words as if she were scared of saying the wrong thing or revealing too much. I knew what that was like.

After a long long pause, I made a decision. I decided to share the story I knew they had wanted to know since they met me. It’s the story that keeps me awake at night. It’s the story I’ve been trying so hard to not think about. I was tired of keeping it to myself, feeling it fester like an unwashed wound, feeling it poison my blood and weaken my muscles. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to tell my Lola this story but I wanted someone to know. I needed someone to know how I got pregnant.

I started at the beginning. He was the president of The Order’s youth division of my school. We only ever spoke about what we needed to do to make a project happen or how we were going to budget the funds. He seemed so nice and so polite, he had gelled hair and he buttoned up his shirt all the way to his neck, he looked so polished and straight as a piece of paper. One day, it was just us in the club room. The treasurer had to attend their mother’s funeral, she died from something called an ectopic pregnancy. Our batch representative’s pregnant aunt recently died by her own hand. I don’t know if it was something I said that made him think that I wanted, you know, but he pushed me to the floor and pulled up my skirt. The smooth wooden floor dug into my back. The lights hurt my eyes.

He used my skirt to wipe up his mess and the blood and then he smiled at me, he just smiled at me. When I got home, I tried to clean my skirt but the stains wouldn’t come off so I rubbed some dirt on it and told my grandmother that I had tripped.

“Now, you know. You know I want to—no—I need to get rid of this thing inside me. I can’t let it kill me. I can’t leave my Lola alone,” I whispered, looking around the room, wishing I could see where the listening devices were.

Grace and Susy share a look, an entire conversation passing by just the shifting of their eyes.

“Regina said you know someone, someone who could help me,” I pleaded, my voice nearly inaudible.

“We can’t. It’s a crime,” Grace whispered to Susy.

“If you get caught… if you get caught, what happens to the rest of us?” Susy said.

“Please,” I pleaded again.

Susy let out a loud sigh and took out a crumpled piece of paper and pencil that she kept in her pockets. She quickly scribbles on it and places it under my blanket so my hand could grab it.

“We have to leave now before Manang Nena eats all the suman at dinner,” Susy said loudly as if she were speaking to a large audience.

Translation: Manang Nena will help you. She knows what she’s doing.

“We’ll see if we can save some for you,” Grace said.

Translation: Please be careful.

My grandmother didn’t like to talk about it and she would never admit it but my grandfather wasn’t a kind man. She likes to think that I was too young to remember before he died. But, I remembered everything. She was quieter when he was around. Hunching her shoulders, casting her eyes down, making herself look small enough to escape his notice. Lolo had thunder in his voice. When he was mad, plates would start flying. I’d always help Lola clean up after. She never flinched even when a shard would cut the skin of her palms. Storms come and go, hija, she said. You have to learn to bend whenever you can.

Brother Elijah was like my grandfather. He was used to people bending for him. I cried out as the switch landed on the skin of my

back. I was shirtless, seated facing the back of the chair, my hands tied with rope.

“Complete the prayer, my dear,” said Brother Elijah, his annoyingly cheery voice bouncing around the gray stone walls.

I say nothing. Smack

“I said, complete the prayer. You’re only making this more difficult for yourself,” he was talking to me as if I were a misbehaving child. I hated it.

The pain from my new wounds melded together with the lingering pain in my abdomen and my head.

“And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. Amen.” I couldn’t stop myself from trembling.

“Now, confess.”

I say nothing again.

One smack and then another and then another and I’ve lost count. Brother Elijah told me that once I gave birth and the child was taken to St. Elizabeth’s Home for Lost Children to become a servant of The Order, he would take me to The Farm. The final destination of all lost women who died from childbirth or refused to be rehabilitated. They would put me on a metal slab. They would tie me up to make sure I don’t disturb the procedure. Thin metal instruments would keep my eyes open so I could watch as they picked me apart, piece by piece. They would take out my heart, my lungs, my intestines, my liver, my kidneys, my pancreas, and my uterus. They would sell them on the black market. No one would ever see me again.

“Tell me who told you about Manang Nena? Who told you that she could push the baby out of your body?” he sneered.

I betrayed Regina. I couldn’t betray her again. I couldn’t betray my friends, my friends.

“You think you’re smart? You think you’re strong? Who do you think placed every president in power ever since the Philippine revolution? Who do you think controls the Church, the government, the media? We have orchestrated this country ever since Spanish rule.

We made friends with the Americans. We sold girls like you to the Japanese. We are everywhere. We are God. You think we don’t know what you tried to get rid of your baby before? You think we’d actually let a woman like Manang Nena exist?” He laughed and laughed.

“Will you confess?” Brother Elijah asked again.

“Make me,” I replied, my voice small yet steady.

I’m sorry, Lola.

I’m sorry I can’t come back to you.

The Ized and Ied Collective

My body your choice. Its mere existence Offends and arouses you.

My body commodified Turned to dust and rot. Just add water. Mix and repeat.

My body colonized Taken again and again and again Throughout different lifetimes. It bends and twists For your twisted pleasure.

My body fetishized Supple and soft Oriental tease Master of seduction And slave for you and you alone.

My body objectified Infantilized and then fertilized. Pit against other bodies. Virginal and untouched flesh From God’s own cheek. Product of obsession And disorder.

My body re-organized Cut up and disassembled Disemboweled

Put back together New and clean.

My body terrified Unmoving and silent beneath yours.

My body singular but intact. Just one Of the many bodies ied and ized.

My body part of a greater whole Silenced for so long But never silent.

My body their body We’ve felt the same unwanted touch The same unwanted gaze. Our individual bodies Coming together A single entity burdened With a higher purpose.

Our bodies an ocean Holding secrets of our mothers past Possessing the ability to feed life And to destroy Those who wish to contain us.

Our bodies uncontainable Undefinable and fluid. Uniquely our own yet intimately tied To the cosmos.

No fixed state except State of unrest.

Unrest and unease tighten their hold Until the threads of Forbearance

Snap.

My body our body

We are the ized and ied collective Coming to collect our dues And the dues of all those you’ve Commodified and fetishized

Fertilized infantilized Categorized demoralized Sterilized monopolized Gentrified romanticized Objectified dehumanized

Enough.

corpo(un)real

You’re years late to the chiro, my spine reminds. Behind the screen, I dream of my back cracking under a cog. Vertebrae in perfect tessellation with its teeth. It’s not supposed to hurt, it’s supposed to sound. Little alarms to alert: in line. Instead, I get an office chair. Look up ergonomics. Stretch. Crack. Pass the belt through the loops like a child again. Iron down the sleeves. Buy some time. Look in the mirror. Nothing

useful. Baby’s first microaggression happens at the back of a coworker’s car. Something about driving. About the grip of a girl’s hands. Who’s to say it wasn’t made up in a dream? Stretch. Crack. Like glass. Like the bones of a dead bird bent against the windshield. Too unbecoming. Too crude. Instead, zip up the skirt tooth by tooth. Laugh about lunch. Curse the rain. Head out, say thanks, give nothing

away. Throw out the files. Burn them in my sleep. Stretch. Crack. Alert: . Dream of lying face down on the asphalt. Forty-degree heat, side of the road, cities away from home, back slowly snapped

into the shape of skid marks. Babae ‘yan. Dream someone offers a drink. A hand. The bill. Drugs. Laugh when they don’t. Dream it anyway. Get lunch, sit down, and lick the bowl clean.

"One of the two terms govern the other..." –Jacques Derrida truth or dare pera o bayong laban o bawi deal or no deal pass or play

mahal ko o mahal ako tama o mali right or wrong true or false in sickness or in health bayan o sarili laban o bawi pera o bayong mahal ko o mahal ako silent or silenced deal or no deal pass or play true or false in sickness or in health bayan o sarili truth or dare

mikael de lara co

Sin Verguenza

“Balang araw, matatapos ang digmaan at mababalikan ko na sa wakas ang aking mga tula,” sabi ng graffiti sa Aleppo, at wala kang magawa kundi mamutiktik sa hiya ngayong kakasangkapanin mo na naman ang pagdurusa ng iba para makasulat ng tula. Diyos ng mga uod, ng tingga, ng langib, ng bubog na nagsusumiksik sa iyong dibdib sa tuwing didilat ka—lahat sila dinasalan mo na, at kung may liwanag sa katahimikan, baka nga dapat bulag ka na. Sabi ng diyos ng mga bintana, Titigan mo ako, baka sakaling may makapkap ka pang kapayapaang nakasilid sa mga hiwa ng mundo. Walang silbi ang makatang naglilihis ng paningin. May manok na kumakahig sa bunton ng sukal at ipa: Ang mahalaga, lumaban, ang mahalaga, lumaban, paulit-ulit mo itong sinasabi nang parang nagtatala ng utang, mga mumo ng pananalig na nilusak saka itinurok sa iyong bisig. Kahapon ng umaga, nakapulot si Yolando ng nayuping bala sa kalsada. Kaydaling maihalo sa barya, at ano pa ang magagawa kundi yumuko? Diyos ng lalamunan, umaasa akong balang araw maglulubay din ang pagkabuwang ng mundo, ngunit masyado na sigurong malaking dalangin

kung hihilingin kong sana nandito pa ako. Sa Victoria Park, labing-isang linggo nang nakikipagbuno ang mga ralyista: Nagbabaon ng basang tuwalya, sinasalubong ang mga truncheon, nagpapahiraman ng payong. Diyos ng bangketa, ng usok mula sa tear gas, nakita mo rin siguro ang magkasintahan, naka-gasmask, akmang maghahalikan. Diyos ng mga kawad, may nalilikhang kapilya sa guho ng bawat gusali. Diyos ng talinghaga. Balang araw matatapos ang digmaan at babalikan natin ang mga tula ng mga may tapang ng hiyang tumula sa panahong ganito.

jack lorenz acebedo

Mas Maraming Napag-aral ang Prostitusyon Kaysa Scholarships, Mas Marami Ring Kinitil na Buhay

Sabay ng pagbayo ng customer ko ang aking alalahanin:

*THUD*

• Sana di sya positive sa COVID.

*THUD*

• Pwede ko pa bang gamitin ulit ung blue na mask.

*THUD*

• Sana may ma pick-up ulit ako, laki ng kaltas ni mamu.

*THUD*

• Shet anong oras na, di pako quota, lecheng lockdown yan.

*THUD*

• Di pa ba sya lalabasan?

*THUD*

• Sana di ulit mapunit ung condom!

*THUD*

• Tangina talaga nya kapag di nya dinagdagan.

*THUD*

• Puta lockdown na naman ata next week.

*THUD*

• Winarak niyo kami, chos.

*THUD*

• Ilan na lang ba yung canton sa bahay.

*THUD*

• De lata na nga lang.

*THUD*

• Walang mawawala sa taong walang-wala.

*THUD*

• Gano kaya kalaki yung 15 billion, eh yung 67 billion?

*THUD*

• Sana walang hidden camera dito, kahiya kila nanay. *THUD*

• Mahal kasi ng thesis eh. *THUD*

• Wala pakong vaccine!

• Ungol, ungol nga ko para labasan na. Puta ang tagal talaga… Ano ba yang kinukuha nya?

• AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

*THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD*

*THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD*

*THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD* *THUD**THUD* *THUD* Maraming matutuwa dito. Malaking parte-parte ‘to, right mamu?

romielle t. morada

PAALALA'T ALALA'T INAALALA (Grocery List ni Mama)

lucky me

ng baboy

isang kilo

yung mga

walo paketeng

kape

pati

tigtatlo isang joy

yung dilaw

kamatis

pangsigang kalamansi

sili

tigsiyam biskwit na

ni bunso

pambaon

kinulang

bukas tanghalian

kahapon

at mantika

bigas patis

at suka

sa mga

na rin may budget

pa ba

pamangkin bumili ka

ng toothpaste

neozep

na rin

magtira

isa at kung kaya

dalawang

ng wallet

bilhan mong

ka pa si tatay

ni doc

ng reseta

mahal

‘maryosep sabon

‘wag mong

at shampoo

ba ng ‘sang

kaligtaan safeguard

nagtatagal

ang plastik

buwan walang ‘sing

gaan

pang isang buwang

ng puregold ngunit ba’t

kayod sakit sa

ang bigat kung

ba’t ang tama

kamay

may

sa tiyan sa paninigurong

laman lalakarin

d’yes pesos

kanila’y

kung kaya

sayang limang

lang

eskinita

mayroong

igagapang at kung minsan

ay

dito

pagtataka kung paano

at bakit

ang siyang

napunta ang maton

ang matron

(pautang)

nag-iisa ngayo’y

nagbabayaning

ang

ina kaninong

bintilador

buhay

ka na

‘yong ginaganap sa tuwing

ng

pumup’westo

matamaan

sa lapag para lang

kabataang

sa ’yong

ang nagbunga

traydor bulok

ng ‘yong

na parte

ay

puso’y galak sa tuwing

ang paglisan

naman na

binabalak pero sanay

ka na rin

inuna’y

humindi. anong

sarili wala ka

na mapundi

Ina ang

magawa

ang ilaw

na ring

na lang

kung hindi hintayin

jerome agpalza

Pares in Cubao

is extra cheap. Nakaabang sa eskinita where the laborers eat. Masabaw madalas pero swak nang hapunan sa low-budget mong taste, at naglalaway mong pisngi.

What constitutes Pares in Cubao? May anise for the kick that keeps calling me. May laman: malansa, mataba, madungis, tinipid. Malapot ito nang kaunti. May harina, may utak, may body. (Saraaap.)

Manamis-namis sa pagsitsit ngunit pwedeng parisan ng patis, toyomansi, o chili garlic. Weird ba?

Huwag kang magulat. Just add rice, ganyan ang classic.

Pares in Cubao, muntik ko nang subukan. Noong pagitan natin ang Oxford, Cambridge, ang buwan. Madilim, maingay, at masangsang ang mga streets noong ako’y 17, at lumingon ka sa akin. Ang sabi mo, try it once, you won’t regret it. Mas marumi, mas funk. Don’t you get it?

Unang inilathala sa 26th Ateneo Heights Writer’s Workshop

Aylli Yaelle E. Cortez. symptoms of self-pride (series) in This Viral struggling. Traditional collage and photomanipulation. 2260 × 3300 px.

Aylli

E. Cortez. symptoms of self-pride (series) out without the audience. Traditional collage and photomanipulation. 2260 × 3300 px.

Yaelle

Aylli Yaelle E. Cortez. symptoms of self-pride (series) either is not or. Traditional collage and photomanipulation. 2260 × 3300 px.

Beatris Cabana. Escaping Criticism Redux (1). Mixed media and poetry. 1114 × 1500 px.

Beatris Cabana. Escaping Criticism Redux (2). Mixed media and poetry. 1114 × 1500 px.

artist statement for Outrun

Content warning: Gun violence, trauma, PTSD, anxiety

Joan “Yuni” Lao. Outrun. Digital. 17.36 × 24.83 in.

Jerome Agpalza (4 BFA Creative Writing)

Si Jerome Agpalza ay isang manunulat na tubong Tondo. Ngayo’y naninirahan sa Quezon City, kasalukuyan niyang tinatapos ang kursong BFA Creative Writing sa Ateneo de Manila University. Makikita ang iba pa niyang mga tula sa heights at Ateneo Art Gallery. Mahilig siyang tumakbo.

Beatris Cabana (4 AB Interdisciplinary Studies)

Although you can call her an artist, Beatris considers herself to be a stripper, peeling away skin and bone to commodify her naked heart.

Mikael de Lara Co (BS Environmental Science 2003)

Mikael de Lara Co has won several awards for his poetry, among them grand prizes in the Palancas for both English and Filipino, back-to-back grand prizes in the Maningning Miclat Awards, the Premyong LIRA, and a Philippines Free Press Literary Award. His work has also been named finalist for the National Book Award for poetry (2014) and literary translation (2014 and 2022). What Passes for Answers, his first book of poetry, is available from the Ateneo Press. He works in the field of strategic communications and resides in Cagayan de Oro City.

Aylli Yaelle E. Cortez (3 BFA Creative Writing)

Aylli Yaelle Cortez is a third-year BFA Creative Writing major pursuing a minor in Theatrical Performance at Ateneo de Manila University. They enjoy making collage art, playing the guitar, and writing stories-essays-and-poems about the weirdness that comes with growing up. They are currently the Vice President of Events in WriterSkill and a Socio-Political Formations member of the Sanggunian: Commission on Gender Equality. They are based in Metro Manila, Philippines.

C Crespo (3 AB Communication)

“There are no beautiful surfaces without a terrible depth.”

C is an illustrator, focusing mainly on digital illustration. C ate all the other letters in their name.

See more of their art @cyllantro | cyllantro.com

Carmen

Dolina (4 BS Computer Science-Digital Game Design and Development)

Carmen Dolina is a computer science/game development student, so she doesn’t know how she ended up writing poetry. Some of her work has appeared in Horde Poetry, TLDTD Journal, and Sweet Tree Review. Her biggest regret is selling her Carly Rae Jepsen tickets to go to theater rehearsals that ended up getting canceled.

Richell Isaiah Flores (4 BS AMDSc - M DSc) Si Richell Isaiah S. Flores ay nag-aaral ng BS Applied Mathematics –Master in Data Science, minor in Panitikang Filipino sa Pamantasang Ateneo de Manila (na ang biro ng magulang ay Ateneo de Paombong dahil sa online setup). Naging fellow siya ng 25th Ateneo Heights Writers’ Workshop para sa Tula at Palihang LIRA 2021. Mababasa ang ilan niyang mga akda sa heights. Naniniwala pa rin siyang Psycho SOTY.

richell.carrd.co

Iago B. Guballa (AB Communication 2020, BFA Creative Writing 2021) Living imaginarily under truthful circumstances (i.e. delusional).

Julia Hao (2 BFA Creative Writing)

Julia Hao, also known as Sakka-san or The Woman in the Writing, is a lover of words and a lover of the Word, among many other things. As of 2022, she is a twenty-year-old undergraduate from Ateneo de Manila University, majoring in Creative Writing, who also wishes

to not grow older anymore (although growing in stature is highly appreciated). Her literary works and art have been published by Gantala Press and can be found in various issues of Novice Magazine PH, including her poem, “Death on the Typewriter: a sestina,” which has been shortlisted nationally for a literary award. She holds book studies for children over the summer. On most days, she is a daughter, an ate, a student, and a beloved, but every day, she is Julia Hao, a receiver of grace.

Angela Lanuza (4 BFA Creative Writing)

As a child, Angela used to fashion novels out of badly stapled bond papers. Now, she is pursuing a Creative Writing degree from Ateneo de Manila University. She obtained a fellowship in the 26th Ateneo heights Writers Workshop. Her works have been published in Anak Sastra, heights, and We The Pvblic. Angela is also a staunch advocate for women’s and children’s rights, volunteering at Tugon Ateneo and Sulong! Philippines.

To see more of her works, visit https://angelalanuza.carrd.co/

Joan “Yuni” Lao (Fine Arts Department)

Joan “Yuni” Lao is a design lecturer, brand designer, and illustrator. As a design teacher, she integrates social issues and empathy into the design interventions discussed in class. As a designer, she volunteers her technical skillset in programs pertaining to human rights, migrant issues, and gender equality. As an illustrator, she creates visual narratives exploring her personal experiences with sexual harassment and injustice.

Rommielle Morada (1 AB Literature-English)

Si Rommielle Morada ay tubong Tondong estudyante ng panitikan, raketera, ate, Mama’s girl, sakitin, taga-ubos ng sinaing, atbp. Mas matagal ang mga sumpong niya ng pananahimik kaysa sa mga sumpong niya ng paglikha. Madalas makikita sa kaniyang sinusulat

ang mga naratibo ng pagkain, pagluto, kababaihan, kulay, women of color, at kaduda-dudang paglalaro ng salita. Hindi rin siya marunong magsulat ng bionote.

May ilan pa siyang mga piyesa sa Bansay 2021.

Ana Morales (2 BFA Creative

Writing)

Ana Morales is a second year Creative Writing major with a penchant for anything poetry. Although she hasn’t been published since high school and graduated from a STEM strand, she is still very much steeped and interested in the arts because of exposure at home, but especially because her interest is piqued by both the subtle and not so subtle state-sponsored attacks on freedom of expression, which includes artists and writers. When she’s not writing, Ana is making doodles of her favorite people while listening to the nightly basketball games that take place across her apartment building’s street.

Odessa

Julienne Rebaya (1 BS Legal Management)

Pursuing the power of the written word one piece at a time. The author is an 18-year-old Scholar at the Ateneo de Manila University with dreams to establish her name in the legal field. Besides having the passion to handle discussions on justice and social issues, she is a firm believer in the impact of poetic language and shares this belief through her short stories, poems, and essays.

Jack Lorenz Rivera (3 BS Psychology)

Si Jack Lorenz Acebedo Rivera, 20, Bipolar na PWD, LGBTQIA+, at mananampalataya ay ang may akda ng Kuwentong Pambata na ‘Ang Multo Sa Aming Klase’ (bit.ly/KPBook2021, Heights Ateneo, 2021), mga sanaysay na ‘At Least?!’ sa ANI 41: Lakbay (bit.ly/Ani41, Cultural Center of the Philippines, 2021), ‘The problem with ching chong,’ at ‘Defeating D’ (https://opinion.inquirer.net/byline/jacklorenz-a-rivera, Philippine Daily Inquirer, 2019), at ng ‘This subclass human existence of our workers’ (https://www.rappler.com/ moveph/229378-subclass-human-existence-of-workers/, Rappler, 2019) na maaakses lahat ng libre sa mga link na nakalagay.

Pasasalamat

Fr. Roberto C. Yap, S.J. at ang Office of the President

Dr. Maria Luz C. Vilches at ang Office of the Vice President for the Loyola Schools

Dr. Leland Joseph R. Dela Cruz at ang Office of the Associate Dean for Student Formation

Dr. Josefina D. Holfileña at ang Office of the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs

Dr. Jonathan Chua at ang Office of the Dean, School of Humanities

Dr. Priscilla Angela T. Cruz at ang English Department

Bb. Joi Marie Angelica Indias at ang Department of Fine Arts

Dr. Gary C. Devilles at ang Kagawaran ng Filipino

Dr. Allan Alberto N. Derain at ang Ateneo Institute of the Literary Arts and Practices (AILAP)

G. Gino Cecilio N. Flores at ang Office of Student Activities

Bb. Marie Joy R. Salita at ang Office of the Associate Dean for the Student and Administrative Services

Gng. Liberty P. Gantos at ang Central Accounting Office

G. Regidor B. Macaraig at ang Purchasing Office

Dr. Vernon R. Totanes at ang Rizal Library

Bb. Carina C. Samaniego at ang University Archives

Bb. Ma. Victoria T. Herrera at ang Ateneo Art Gallery

Bb. Ma. Mercedes T. Rodrigo at ang Areté

Ang MVP Maintenance at ang mga Security Personnel

Dr. Vincenz Serrano at ang Kritika Kultura

Bb. Marina Mata at ang The GUIDON

Bb. Dar Cerafica Brazil at ang Matanglawin

Ang Sanggunian ng mga Paaralang Loyola ng Ateneo de Manila, at ang Council of Organizations of the Ateneo - Manila

At sa lahat ng nagpapanatiling buhay sa panitikan at sining sa komunidad ng Pamantasan ng Ateneo de Manila sa pamamagitan ng patuloy na pagbabahagi ng kanilang mga akda at patuloy na pagsuporta sa mga proyekto ng heights

Patnugutan

Punong Patnugot

Katuwang na Patnugot

Tagapangasiwang Patnugot para sa mga Panlabas na Gawain para sa mga Panloob na Gawain para sa Pananalapi

Editor-at-Large Patnugot sa Sining

Katuwang na Patnugot sa Sining

Patnugot sa Ingles

Katuwang Patnugot sa Ingles

Patnugot sa Filipino

Katuwang Patnugot sa Filipino Patnugot sa Disenyo

Katuwang na Patnugot sa Disenyo

Gumaganap ng Katuwang Patnugot sa Disenyo Patnugot sa Heights Online

Katuwang na Patnugot ng Heights Online

Tagapangasiwa ng Produksyon

Katuwang Tagapangasiwa ng Produksyon

Punong Tagapamagitan at Tagapamagitan sa Ingles

Tagapamagitan sa Sining

Tagapamagitan sa Filipino

Tagapamagitan sa Disenyo

Tagapamagitan sa Produksyon

Tagapamagitan sa Heights Online

Andrea Faustine A. Isaac [4 AB AM 2023]

Ziona Gilia S. Castro [4 AB POS 2023]

Maria Angela D. Lanuza [4 AB CW 2023]

Simone Andrea L. Yatco [4 AB SOCIO 2023]

Lindsey Therese U. Lim [3 AB MEC 2024]

Alexie Nichole S. Cruz [4 AB POS 2023]

Ana Lucia D. Pineda [3 AB COM 2024]

Carla Andrea C. Crespo [3 AB COM 2024]

Mary Justine B. Tiongco [3 BFA CW 2024]

Andrea G. Posadas [4 AB COM 2023]

Anjanette C. Cayabyab [3 BSM AMF 2024]

Vincent A. Halog [4 AB PH 2023]

Mia Genine D. Tupas [4 BFA ID 2024]

Justine Christiane B. Bello [4 BFA ID 2024]

Marie Jilliene Cloe T. Sison [4 BFA ID 2024]

Maria Sophia Andrea E. Rosello [3 AB COM 2024]

Deanne F. Sy [3 AB COM 2024]

Ashlee Nicole L. Baritugo [3 AB COM 2024]

Vaughn Dylan D. Ramos [2 BS PSY 2025]

Martin V. Villanueva

Alfred Benedict C. Marasigan

Christian Jil R. Benitez

Tanya Lea Francesca M. Mallillin

Gino Cecilio N. Flores

Regine Miren D. Cabato

Mga Kasapi

Sining Ingles Filipino

Mikaela Alexandria M. Alvear, Jude Angelo S. Buendia, Lauren Gabrielle B. Carlos, Kevin Bryce J. Castro, Regina P. Due, Kelsey Danielle B. Escareal, Mayari M. Gayod, Kimiko Gabrielle R. de Guzman, Eric Noel B. Jabagat, Hannah Stephanie G. Jaugan, Joanna R. Lucas, Rianna Aurora G. Nolido, Ryan Joshua F. Reyes, Adrian Lance B. Teng, Kristine Andrea M. Torrente, Maria Katrina Umali, Justine Clarisse S. Valdez

Beatris Cabana, Jose Antonio D. Carballo, Aylli Yaelle E. Cortez, Alexie Nichole S. Cruz, Miguel David V. Daza, Gayle Denise A. Dy, Alyanna Therese S. De Leon, Angela Nicole A. Divina, John M. Divinagracia, Nico Lorenzo C. Escalona, Sophia Alexis E. Escarez, Harvey D. Felipe, Stanley Triston Y. Guevarra, Francine Isabell G. Juan, Emily A. Limlengco, Jessica Louisse A. Nonato, Rina Julia B. Ortega, Ian G. Reganion, China Nicole C. Roberto, Alyanna Gabrielle E. Rosales, Adrian Lance B. Teng, J.S. Tiu, Jose Nell Andrew S. Tumulak

Jerome Allen C. Agpalza, Franz Leonard Atanacio, Ivan Yuri P. De Leon, Lanz Railey A. Fermin, Richell Isaiah S. Flores, Corinne A. Ignacio, Marie Frances Therese M. Joson, Jerome Matthew L. Maiquez, Sola Fide D. Ramos, Maria Jessica Franz L. Sakay, Ryan Gabriel B. Suarez, Ysabella Margarette M. Zureta

Produksyon Heights Online

Mikaela Alexandria Alvear, Frances Angeles, Francisella Avilla, Francine Carasig, Carmencita Dolina, Sarah Huang, Angela Maria Monica Imbuido, Maria Paulina Lasala, Isabella Lozada, Francesca Tatiana Montaner, Danelle Erin Natividad, Kristine Pabua, Alysa Danyelle Papio, Franz Miguel Reyes, Pete Manuel Roxas, , Bryce Garrett Tamayo, Divine-kai Tan, Justin Dhaniel Tan, Mia Genine Tupas, Nicole Ann Vargas

Miguel D. Argosino, Paul Stanlee V. Anonuevo, Katrina Victoria L. Antonio, Alexandra Maria P. Bringas, Duke Xander M. Campilan, Zacaria D. Diro, Mikka Clarice W. Dy, Bea Louise M. Eleazar, Ma. Francesca Louise A. Gines, Josephine Reena L. Perez, Brylle Matthew B. Principe, Odessa Julienne E. Rebaya, Arabella Resado

Bettina Andrea A. Basilio, Alexandra Gabrielle B. Bengzon, Rafael Nicolas D. Cabrera, John Daniel B. Cancela, Megan Erin P. Doran, Joshua Emerson T. Go, Francine Isabell G. Juan, Ana Margarita G. Morales, Allan M. Raymundo Jr., Nicole Mikhaela Q. Reyes, Elisha Mikaela S. Ruiz, Mateo Jacob S. Tambunting, Amanda Lexine G. Ting, Maria Mikaela H. Tormon

Disenyo

13th ateneo heights artists’ workshop november 19, 2022

Faura Hall, room 304

Panelists

Raphael Ruiz

Patricia Ramos

Nicholas Ng Geela Garcia

Maria Luisita David Mich Cervantes

Fellows

Francine Ann Carasig [digital art]

Daphne Maurisse C. Chua [digital art]

Ian Roman M. Odtohan [photography]

Marcus Patrick O. Ong [photography]

Lars Michaelsen V. Salamante [digital photography] Angel Therese Soriano [digital illustration]

AHAW Director

Ziona Gilia S. Castro

AHAW

Co-Directors

Carla Andrea C. Crespo

Carmencita G. Dolina

AHAW Guest Lecturer

Joan “Yuni” Lao

AHAW Committee

Mikaela Alexandria M. Alvear

Kristine T. Pabua

Kimiko Gabrielle R. de Guzman

Justin Dhaniel Tan

Paul Stanlee V. Anonuevo Vaughn Dylan D. Ramos

Finance

Lindsey Therese Lim Online Maria Sophia Andrea Rosello Deanne Faraon Sy

Head Moderator Martin V. Villanueva