Copyright © 2017 by Era Mae Gabrinez

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, electronic
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written permission from the copyright owner.

Illustrated by Kimberly Dizon

 the eleventh hour

n.

the latest possible time before it is too late

first sight

i am a child of the darkest clouds and heavy rains. I am afraid of the sun and the light, and i always
wish to be alone. i am made of bricks and cement that hide the cracks inside of my concrete walls.

i tried to tear myself down in front of other people but no one has ever tried to pick up the small
pieces of me. so i keep my eyes closed all the time.

all throughout the years i went blind, he touched me and made me talk about the brightness this
world has possessed. it made me wonder why he's doing it when he's pocketful of curse words and
black clothes. he's never the one who talks about feelings, rather he talks about how he hates
feelings.

the moment he made me open my eyes, i became a child who's about to learn how to walk and talk
and feel things. i slowly learned how to walk through the fragile lines between love and hate. he
made me talk of 'i love you' and 'i miss you' no matter how foreign they are for my tongue.

it's all new to me but i'm all up for more.

more.
this is how it started

i was supposed to sleep

when you punched me
with a fist of fire
directly to my chest.
i felt so alive all of a sudden;
my body was burning.
all I could think of was
the smell of your perfume
lingering on my pillow —
it was a warning of what was coming.

when morning came,

i was an object
swimming in space;
a rocket ship,
a metal surface,
but when my hands brushed
against your lips,
for once, i want the rocket ship
to explode
and turn into dust.
for once,

i allowed someone to put

roses on my head
even when their thorns are
creating holes to my chest.
and it bleeds and bleeds
and bleeds in a good way
bookshelf girl

he found me
in an empty bookstore
where i danced with the devils
and wept with the angels.
it was during the night when
i didn't recognize the poems
i bled nor the songs i used to
have small talk with
at 3:28 a.m.
he found me curled up;
a crumpled paper
dripping in blue
with heartfelt memories
in one of the shelves.
his eyes didn't look apologetic
as he tried to read the emotions
carved on my face

i predicted nothing
since i cannot fathom the
words etched on his lips,

instead i wished
for him to never
get tired of me
september

i drown myself with the thoughts of you

and i find it funny how everyone used to
be so oblivious about the coincidences
that tie us together on our feet. but the
tables and chairs, and even our internet
connection seem to know how our hearts
beat dangerously on our chests.
i found myself drifting away most of the
time to the thoughts of first hello, of
first almost goodbye, of the first time
we both cried, and of the first time i
made you smile.

after all this time, i still found myself

wishing to go back to the first time we
went home together.
what home feels like

for quite some time now i've been asking myself,

what does home feel like?

i used to think i am home

but the longer i stay,
the more i lay in a beaten room
where war has taken place
and love was lost within a second.

i want to taste home in the tip

of my tongue and run my hands
on its edges. i want
to open the doors and let it welcome me
with the smell of perfume
filling up my nostrils.
i want it to hug me until i forget
how to breathe or until flowers start
to grow in my lungs.
i want it to kiss me longer;
whisper its love for me
in between touches and kisses.

somehow i realized, home never felt like

the smoothness of bed sheets nor
the tranquillity of my room on a rainy evening.

somehow i realized, home

feels like you.
10:00 P.M.

i've always loved the cities

and tangerine lights
illuminating on your irises.
i knew then that the buildings and
sidewalks want us to see the world
while we're still each other's
hostages.
the clock pulls us away
but the benches keep
fighting for us to keep sitting;
hands clutch;
minds blanked;
hearts tied. i know
it's getting late
but for the first time
in my life, i don't want
to go home yet.
a response poem

my heart only speaks of sadness

and hatred;
of selfishness and envy.
the cold hugs me more than anyone
ever does, and there are some days
when i wake up with the same sadness
crawling up in my veins, like it’s a drug,
being injected in my system — i got overdosed.

i’d gotten used to reassuring myself

that loneliness and madness
can be very pretty, too, and that
the longing for having someone
to fill my holes can take a lot of years,
so i kept myself busy over nonsensical things
and never thought of love again.

surprisingly, someone crossed the line.

it was never my intention but,
he made me pain his walls and
give colours to his monochrome life.
he opened his rooms for me, and
i got the chance to see what’s behind
this darkness i’m failing to see;
he allowed me to see the universe that
hides behind his eyes.

it's all new to me but

i’d love for you to witness the

sunset
and sunrise
with me,

and live under the same sky, maybe.

paperweight

when you told me our day has ended; i did not know how to wake up the following day without
thinking of how we spent it. during our day you told me you love the rain so much but what i had
given you was storm. you were so forgiving at first because you thought a rainbow will come after the
thunder and lightning. however, just like the houses and streets i left broken and damaged, you also
wanted to end the
pain.

a year was a day for us.

but it doesn’t take a month or a year to lessen the pain, the guilt, and the sadness.

it doesn’t take a day to love you less.

the sun burned too much for my liking

our afternoon danced too

slow—
ly
but my heart
is in thousand pieces
already
fast like brick walls turning into powdered cement
the water
burned against
my skin
but i froze on my seat,
i do not know how to
get up
and face the evening,
i could not feel my body;
i could only feel heaviness
i wonder why
i feel metals were stored
in my skeleton
when all of me was
emptied
by your absence
january

january felt like

bittersweet candy
filling up my entire mouth;
it started out sweet like
the first time you told me
you liked me;
i had no idea it'll end up
with tsunamis hitting me on
my face as the ocean swallowed
my heart and my brain
where does this lead us?

i don’t have the audacity

to vomit the words
on my diary nor to kiss
this catastrophe good—
bye; it isn’t your fault
that you become the series
that i binge watch and
the song i listen to
over and over; the sunrise
tells me to get out of this
poisonous spell, but
the size of this planet we’re into
just gets bigger and bigger
as days grow older;
the sunset makes me adore
the ball of sadness you possess,
as well as the blood you shed
upon hurting yourself.

the traffic light seem

to stay red,
but i’m totally fine with it.
la douleur exquise

and no,
i can’t touch the pieces of art
that hang on the walls of your museum.
only i can stare at them
from afar, shifting my gaze
back and forth — from their outlines
to the shades of their colours.

my fingers are itching to trace every edge,

every detail that formed your masterpiece.
i'm ready to hold them tightly
at the cracks of my lips
but it’s not like you’d allow me to do so;
i know you won’t

because it’s 5 already,

you’re about to close;
the next morning and the next
and the next,
you’re not going to let me in, too.

yes, i would tell you that it’s okay

because it leaves an unfathomable
feeling in my system but
at the same time, it puts holes in my brain
and sets my chest on this
undying flames.
when you grow tired of me

when the flames you ignited on me

has finally turned into
ashes, let them be
carried by the wind, let them be gone
dancing away
until each dust falls
into different place
where there is no trace of you.

when the garden you created

inside of me has become a total wreck,
let the flowers die,
let their petals run dry,
let the greenery turn into pale white,
and let the soil be eaten by
the drought until nothing
can grow onto it
anymore
in this world, there is no free lunch

fate decided to give us a free taste of

something we can only savour once;
the sweetness still remains at the tip of our tongues
even though it was already gone
after hours

the tangerine sky is about to go,

i’d live again with the night’s endless sorrow
drown me not with tears that are about to show
save me from the moon and its changing glow
there is a lot of space in me for you

the fallen leaves and

busy streets
have witnessed how
i stitched up my
nervousness together
with the desire of
letting your comet
invade my land.
i don't want
to think that you're willing
to dedicate your whole being
and assemble the lonely parts
of me
but your actions state otherwise
instead; i have given you
a lot of burning stars
directly to your chest,
i have built craters and have brought
too much summer on your back,
and i told you many times already
that i'm not yet ready
to go with you in your planet
but now that you've given me
enough reasons to do so,
i'll hold your hand.
i'm ready to take off
with you.
of random kisses and heartaches

he found me through the lines of my poems when i wasn’t looking for love. soon, our verses built the
feelings, the touches, and the kisses until it hurt, until nothing was left to be felt but the tingling
sensation of our lips when they were connected still.
what you do to me

i never thought
there was a part of you
that is willing to travel
places of me.
i was a continent you wanted
to explore
so you let me become a map
you laid on your bed
as you trace every inch.
you draw circles,
left marks,
planted kisses on territories,
and i, i became a defenceless land
with goose bumps like tall buildings rising.
you didn’t care about the
cracks and dirt on my floor,
instead you let yourself
get lost in my endless pool of misery.

i know i'm being invaded

but i don’t mind being colonized
as long as it’s by you.
love is a crime; we are the sinners

i hear the gunshots

vibrating on my stomach
the moment our lips touched.
our hands were bombs exploding
in each other's touch,
our hearts invisibly cuffed
themselves and we threw the key
away
at some place where no one will
find it and bring it back to us.
we ran to the endless darkness
with long stares
as we drank each other's presence.

tonight we dreamed of us tangled

in space; the next morning, we woke up
with our lips bleeding,
probably from the sins that we said
while we were sleeping.
the eleventh hour

i am not the first person who touched

your heart. it used to be someone else's
and mine belonged to no one.
we built this love through the words
we wrote, and became visible in our
metaphor. we have known what sadness
like how your favourite cat died.
we have opened each other's chests
like doors to our favourite place,
only to find out our hearts both
whispered,
"i do not want this anymore."

it made us cry for a night

as if the place we thought our haven
becomes nothing but a battlefield.
but then we realized it isn't over yet,
and realized it's both what we wanted,
regardless of differences in our poetry
or taste in the music we sing
because in each other's arms,
we found our refuge.
faodail

show me a grin,
the way you do when you
stare at the stars
and bask in the milky way.

assure me
that the moon and the
whole galaxy aren't tired of
being used as metaphors yet.

(you and the alternate universe

are the only things
that give me bliss.)
of paint bucket, brushes, and feelings

nothing is better
than the collision of
love and art.
your intense gaze
turns me into a picturesque
landscape;
your lips paint mine
with a darker shade of red;
your body is a canvas
where i paint my soul;
and your heart is a place
where i calligraphed my name
as long as time permits me to live,
i will not give you up
About Me

Hi, I’m Era.

I'm a writer/artist based in the Philippines. I try to be good at several things, including writing
poetry, songs, and fan fiction, doing calligraphy and watercolor art, singing, photo and layout editing,
and blogging.

If not working or doing artsy stuff, I spend my time in my room, either reading, fangirling on
Twitter, listening to music, or cuddling with my cat.

Find me online:

agirlwithasaga.wordpress.com
facebook.com/erawrites

For inquiries, comments, and collaborations, email eragabrinezpoetry@gmail.com