Byron, Dear Octofaggy

Suppose

I could

Speak of what is gray and how we want to paint gray as other than gray, these memories of purple or yellow or color other than the sepia that they have become. Like twelve years in a picture instead: of a cat and a mouse, cartoon love, the antics of secret and known tics, still asked about marriage and kids--- the hmmm of drama---- I keep mum
On what could simply depress you

Suppose

I could speak

Of how I am obsessed with the number 6 nowadays because I can't hold my breath for 6 seconds. It must be because of those smoking sticks. So I count the six black gifts that came after a letter dated 3/21 (and that's 6 divided by 2 over 6+1 times 3):

(I.) Suppose
I am
Thanked today by a family man my age for my time before he said good-bye. That is, after I kicked him out for being more than 50% deaf. He could not hear nor bear a room full of healthy ears of strangers. He is then jobless.

The family man my age reminded me of somebody I taught a heartbeat ago--- same wheedling face for "One more time please" instead of complying with time, limited by hypochondria.

I almost said so to my heart but my heart is a star in Silent Movies. It has been locked and as silent as the cross lit red I could see outside the window.

(II.) Suppose
I am thanked
Today by a sedate gay old man who needed 3k but I only gave him 2k. He got a job (thanks to me, he says)but could not keep it because he didn't have money to go to and from the job, to eat. Until his first salary sometime after Holy Week. His life savings was lost to that bastard Ondoy; that monster ate his internet little shop and didn't even spit out change, that decency, just debris.

The sedate gay old man likes movies, said anyone who wants a job listing cities should watch "Up In The Air" and drool over Clooney. He thanked me again with,"Can you suggest a topic for my 5-minute-talk with a New Zealander?" He said that New Zealand English says "Sivin" instead of "Seven" and would say "3rd of the 2nd" intead of "February 3".

I laughed
Said, "Talk about rugby or any water sport. Or Flight Of The Conchords. Or Lord Of The Rings. Or sheep."
I shook my head.

(III.) Suppose
I am thanked today

By a 45-year-old woman, annulled mother, her husband was "A schizoid," she said, "A musician."

I nodded, laughed, "I don't know which is worse--- being married to an artist, writer, or musician." I almost married all, these crazy philanderers, beautiful fuckers.

Annulled mother gave me hand-crafted black earrings and necklace from my dreams. I thought they were chocolates; They were delivered in a black box--- these gestures of thanks and "Can we be friends?"

(IIII.) Suppose
I smile
And keep my benevolent distance, mother to all these miracles. One of them, another 40's mother, said that no woman can be a mother if she has not given birth to child.

I smiled, "Dang mother! I'm giving birth to you, am I not?" Each word is a snap, "Wake up." They awake---- look at all these seeds blooming.


(IIIII.) Suppose
Patron, I cannot write yet what you and I dream about.

"What do Filipinos dream about?"

This is what my time has been doing--- the beginnings, "What do you dream about?" They wake up, my voice in their dreams--- sometimes a nagging bogeywoman--- and awake, they dream.

(IIIIII.) Suppose
On a Monday, voiceless and happily away
From what has been grinding and hounding me with text messages and emails about what's to be done,

I reply with, "Petulant children waiting to be spoon-fed...Recalcitrant teenagers with the herd-bully mentality...Re-evaluate your work ethics and value systems...It has never been about our egos...It has always been about the service to the Filipino..."

Suppose

I could speak
Of standing on that line of rats, wanting to be elsewhere and resign---
Instead
I slap mouths lisping and twittering "My poem is---"
about the human syntax, these doors being opened because windows stay closed,
prattling quoted words about the White Man and the Negro and some other dead poets,
rhyming the preoccupation of the almost and new graduates with chalk, gay boy
falling for a lesbian, an ode to Coke:

I count six breaths and sigh (This is not a poem, by the way),

"THIS IS REAL. ARE YOU?"

Suppose
I made you laugh