Iwahig Penal Farm Colony

Something brought back memories
Down large mudholes
Long strands of green
Ducks wobbling their feet on muck

Freedom is where there are no rails
And in shirts of orange, blue, and brown
They fill out the vast horizon
Where silence clips sounds

I watch tires make their marks
Leaving imprints on dirt
Where many names should have been called
For whom freedom's enfolding

I came out thinking

Is there freedom in them?
Who toil for a new shirt
a bar of soap, a milk powder pack
To induce sleep down a hammock?

I came out asking again

What is freedom
More than a softer bed,
A hot meal at day's end
and a loved-one looking from beyond?

Flashback

Wheels turn loose inside
they lead me back
cobbled streets, horsedrawn carriages
I was 20 at Fort Santiago
looking at a man
holding the reins

It was 10 years ago
many things happened
Nothing's changed
I think, I feel
Yet the same

Wheels grind stones
In my memory
They appear mighty
going on, going round
Never stopping

Wheels they remind me
Of a long lost folk song
"Wheels of fate"
Life is a wheel in fate

How can fate stay the same?

-Ava Villareal
November 23, 2008 (McDonald's SM City-Cebu)

Memory of a Russian Lover

You were seen
At the bay
Your back against
the shadow
Cast by the sea

Your fingers
Still clutching
The vodka bottle
I wonder if they
Remember my body
its contours
the depth, dark
pit they caressed

cause I do
I still see
Your filmy eyes
They hide
secrets
no, not women
not philandering
secrets of
your untold past

Those sheets
crumpled
By movements
bathed
In our fluids
They knew
They kept them

I know now
cause I listened
I feel it
The great ache
remnants
Of a tyranny
wounds, uncertainty

I know now
cause I've seen
How you clutched
To that vodka
bottle of spirit
Dying to be free.

-Ava Villareal
October 9, 2008

The Reason

Wounds cascade like boulders from a cliff

I can hear them roar tonight

In the acquiescence of the night

In the solitude of my night lamp

They’re coming like the past

Revolting, searing, haunting

I have been underneath

I have been hiding

In its shadow’s deceit

Alone, fearing its strength

Until I found myself broken

Wounds tingle like pebbles

I can feel them crouch

In the embers of my dream

In the soft sound of sleep

Like the memories

Of heydays and losses

Left on the sands of time

I have been there counting

Alone, too long

I found myself

And yet still broken.

In this climb, here on my mountain

As I succumb to my pains

You ‘re all I need to untie my wholeness.

The Junction

While I'm at it

I'm starting to stare

At my own eyes

It leads me back

to that emptiness

the numb

that blinds the mind

and wrings the heart

While I'm at it

I feel lost

Alone and yet

Unfeeling

Nothing comes

Between now

And yesterday

It is there

In that space

Where only

I and myself

Hold and link

With each other

It is there

When I

Need you most.