camapola

There's a cat and her name is Bitu Who has many things to attend to. Oh what, you may ask Is her important task? Well, you see, she now has to eat you.

There's a cat who is named Arundhati Though they all call him Hat for brevity. His ruthless Indian eyes Reflect much demise At the hand of his crazed depravity.

There once was a cat called Tingga Who was boss of the cat mafia. Though he had but one ball He could have killed them all Had he not found it all too bourgeois.

There once was a kitty named Peppy Who killed children with a machete. With a twitch of his eye, Peppy would sigh And slice the kids into confetti.

As I tossed him his new toy-a multicolored ball with a bell inside, Tingga just looked at it and walked away. My half-castrated cat with his single testicle already had one big ball, and that was all he needed. Runt of the pack abandoned by his mother, his whole life had been about overcoming the odds. He had aged so much since the day he became our cat, barely old enough to walk. He first came to us with legs like fins, swishing on the marble floor stopped only by wooden cabinets or stacks of photo albums under coffee tables. The day I gave him the toy, those legs once soft and frail were covered with scratches from nights outside fighting w

My name is a flower in our garage from decades past, pink like my mother's sleepless eyes in the pictures where she holds the newly born, newly named me, unrecognizable in my smallness. In those pictures I am also a small pink thing covered in blood which seeps onto sheets and towels and my father's hands. However, I look nothing like a flower, be it a camellia or otherwise. Now more like a tree in color and stance and stature, I would be better off with a name like Willow or Acacia or maybe even Sequoia. My name was a song I couldn't sing as I watched the other Camilles with feet like doves dance like petals floating in the summer breeze. I

Pasensya na sa apelyido kong banyaga na pahiwatig ng pagiging hilaw na Amerikana. Pasensya na kung ilong ko'y hindi pango at kung magsalita'y may slang ang Ingles ko. Pasensya na't di ko maitanggi na ang pagkaPilipino ko'y merong kahati. Sana lang di ako kamuhian sa di ko paglimot sa aking inang bayan na di ibig sabihin na aking tinatalikuran ang lahat ng aking mga pinagdaanan sa isang munting bayan sa may Caloocan. Ako ay isang Filipino-American pinagsamang dalawang lahi, hindi pinagpipilian.

it is because you are not mine that you are beautiful the distance of strangers between us now defines what is left in quiet- love poems that await perfection in the art of silent breathing words read white on the hallowed surface of space words read white on these sheets I search for your scent words read white on this paper I dare not mark with marring words read white for fear of writing you for fear of wanting you for fear of claiming you for fear of maiming you who will never be mine who will always be beautiful

I wonder what the black butterfly seeks within stone walls where my parents were. It was time to go but they weren't there. The older children on the playground took away our toys and held them to the sky hands glazed with tears and snot grasped at air shaped like mother or father who lowered things for me, his head like the clouds I saw in coloring books and left blank. Seeing nothing but knees when we walked in crowded places footsteps so close to my ears a sea of pants and shoes and things fallen from pockets cold to the touch and demanding usage a hand brought down moved me forward but would never, like