...A point...
I marvel at times at how much we've become porn stars in cannibal movies...
...A point...
Spaces moved for our body parts littering the limitless spaces in the past three years.
...A point...
You used to be somebody who just wrote, then a Monobloc, now a quarter stapling a point.
...A point...
...A point...
...A point...
A point we do get when it seems all pointless
...A point...
I have been afraid to put a clock that has stopped
Into words, like that dinner before the number 32.
There was a conversation on the phone with my son.
...My son...
As I get older, as I talk about him with strangers who become friends little by little, they really think that he's my son.
...Well...
I was there when his mommy didn't even know that he was growing inside her.
I was there when I named all the penguins in the comforter covering her, covering him.
I was there when he was in danger because his mother's womb was fighting infections.
...And when my son came out...
I was there to rock him to sleep when his mommy--- harried and panicked--- couldn't put him to sleep. There after hours of teaching, hoarse and exhausted. There when his mommy went away, his daddy was away, a baby all alone, and he and I would speak of what was on his mind as we rocked in the rocking chair.
...My son is afraid that he'll be left once more by those he loves...
I tell him and we show him that we'll never leave him and he'll never be left again.
...My son likes music...
When he was a baby he liked reggae. Now he sings to songs from the '90's, made me laugh when he started blaring to "21 Guns"more than a month ago. He is six years old and his mother gets exasperated when he treats everything as a joke. Six years old and negotiates like a litigator.
...More than a month ago, my son looked for his father....
I had come home without him.
I only said, "He will call in a couple of days."
He didn't.
...I had looked at my son, drawing his school on a new green stool, and I thought about the listening process--- like riding a bicycle, long forgotten school days and when I was not spoiled...
"IT'S," I said to my son, to copy, "Not IST."
He drew and said, "O NO IT IS THE ZOMBIE."
He spelled phonetically.
"&," I showed when he asked how to do the ampersand, "An eight with a tail, baby."
...My son says that he's no longer a baby...
Refuses to be carried and cradled like one, except when he's tired or upset or sick. He came with me when I ran errands, acting like the little man. He and his grandfather were speaking of the night spirits that would come to speak to naughty children.
...On the dinner before the number 32 there was the conversation with my son...
He said that he wanted to talk to his father.
I said that his father was in outer space.
He said, "Huh?"
I muttered, "Yes baby, he's now an astronaut."
There, the tears breaking and I choking, "He left the children too." The old man says, Might be prudent to tell the boy the truth. Perhaps not now but when the time's right. When you're ready.
There, the tears melting and praying, "Anything...I could take...Anything I can take...But not when it comes to the children..."
Yesterday I spoke with my son.
I asked him if he's eating well, listened about his school, and pleaded for him not to get sick again.
He said that he weighed 40.
He said that he was drawing more and more.
He asked when I was coming home.
He said, "I love you. I miss you," instead of goodbye.
He didn't ask for his father.
And I refuse to say, "He no longer loves you, too."
I don't think that's the truth anyway.
Perhaps next time my son asks, I will say, "He's in the police station. Pinapablotter sarili niya."
No, no, playing astronaut sounds so much cooler.
...A point...
You make me write
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