The Fetus in the Stomach

Last night, I had a strange dream. I dreamed that I was a tiny dot in the womb of my mother. Formed by love, and blessed by the Lord. I could not see, I could not hear, but I could feel that I was loved. Embrace by the warm tenderness of my mother's flesh.

Here, I breathe on my mother's breath!
Here I fed on my mother's food!

Oh what a place to live! Oh what a place to grow! I was extremely happy in my little world. Believe me, it was happiness beyond compare.


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Fake

I got this smile, I skip and I play like a kid.

I'm happy.

People think i'm optimistic, talented and smart. I am religious.

I have many friends.

Do I look like that? Do I?

I hope you're convinced by this synthetic, this fake smile of mine.

Most people envy how perfect my life is.

How I don't have problems and how I seemed to be fine with everything.

But am I?


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A Glass of Cold Water

Everybody calls me young, beautiful, wonderful.

Am I?

 Look at my hair, my lips, my red rosy cheeks and a pair of blinkering eyes.

I remember, somebody says that I look like my mother that I look like my mother.
But that when she was young.

Now, I am much lovelier than she is.

I’m a mortal Venus.

Oops! What time is it?
I must get ready for the party!

Beep-beep…!

A-huh! Here they are!
Yes, I’m coming!

"Child, are you still there?"

"Hmp! That’s my mama"


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I Demand Death

My hands are wet with blood. They are crimsoned with the blood of the man I have just killed.

I have come here today to confess. I have committed murder -- deliberate, premeditated murder. I have killed a man in cold blood. That man is my master.

I am here not to ask for pity but for justice -- simple, elementary justice. I am a tenant. My father was a tenant before me and so was his father before him. This misery is my inheritance and perhaps this will be my legacy to my children.

I have labored on a patch of land not mine. But i have learned to love that land, for it is the only thing that lies between me and complete destitution.

It is the only world that I have learned to cherish. And somewhere on that land I have managed to build what is now the dilapidated nipa shack that has been home to me.

I have but a few worldly possession, mostly rags. My debts are heavy. They are the sum total of my ignorance and the inspired arithmetic of my master, which I do not understand.

I labor like a slave and out of the fruits of that labor, I get a mere pittance for a share. And I have to stretch that mere pittance to keep myself and my family alive.

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The Lost Girl

I am a girl, young in heart and in mind…
I am carefree, I enjoy doing nothing
but play,play and play…

I seldom go to school but hmp! nobody cares!
Instead,you will see me roaming around
standing at the nearby canto,
or hanging around at the sari-sari store
standing beside the jukebox stand…

One day I asked I asked my mother to teach me
how to behave, to live, and appreciate all the
beautiful things in life.
Would you like to know what she told me?
She said… " Can’t you see, I have to hurry up for my
majong session! "

So I turned to my father to console me.
But what a wonderful word he did tell me…
" Child, I have to finish my overtime work…Here’s 500 pesos,
go and ask your teacher about that question…"

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