by a.paulcasco
Minsan pinapanagot ko ang sarili ko sa
Mga bagay na hindi ko naman kasalanan.
Can you understand me?
It means:
Sometimes I hold myself accountable
For things that are not my fault.
A vault opens in my head
Of things I left unsaid
Of things I could have prevented
Had I known better.
That summer when I dared my brother
To swim farther than I knew he could
And when I got to shore I couldn’t
Find him.
Everytime the waiter said
“Enjoy your meal”
And I responded, stupidly, with
“You too!”
It’s in there.
Checked and accounted for
By a banker that doesn’t exist
Working for money that isn’t real
For a system that DOES NOT MAKE SENSE,
And I do not know
What language they speak in.
Corro hacia cosas que sé que me harán daño.
Mientras tanto, me digo a mí mismo mentiras
que me harán más fuerte.
Can you understand me?
It means:
I run towards things that I know will hurt me,
Telling myself lies that it will make me stronger.
An olympic race-track constructs itself in my mind
With sprinters that cannot stop
Cannot stop
Cannot stop
cannot STOP!
I fill my heart with empty promises,
With vacant parking lots
That once held
Lovers lit by reflected sun.
I fill my head with false stories,
And sex
And drama
And cuts
On my
Arm
With stupid racers, who do not have a finish line,
and I do not know what language they speak in.
Can you understand me?
But sometimes, when the sun shines through the clouds
And I feel a sense of purpose that falls upon my eyelids
Like the spring breeze on golden county,
And the vault closes, and the racers, for a second, stop.
Sometimes,
for a fleeting moment,
I am here.
Can you understand me?