30. Queer. Manila. || Help me eat & pay bills. (I also have PayPal!) || Writer for hire, especially English papers, poetry & fan fiction. || MASTERLIST/TAGS || [email protected]
TulaSalitaanPH:911 was fun, and I'm surprised I made it to the final round at all!
Here's my round one piece: DEAR ALICE.
For the record, I believe Dr. Christine Blasey-Ford and I think the American Senate should've listened. #CancelKavanaugh is so important. That was absolutely one of the driving forces behind this piece; so many women coming forward with their own horrors, the #MeToo movement, tales from people close to my heart. <3
I feel like this is a love letter to survivors, in my own way.
Putting the text under a cut. TRIGGER WARNING: SEXUAL ASSAULT.
Dear Alice,
I believe you.
When you were nine years old and nobody listened
because you were too privileged
and you were too “okay-looking”
to have gone through anything traumatic,
you decided to bury it.
And that’s okay.
I believe you.
Dear Alice:
When that man violated your trust
and when that man decided that whatever he did to you would be swept under the rug
--and he was right--
because mama said you were having a nightmare...
Alice, my little girl,
that was not. your. fault.
Dear Alice...
Alice...
Sweet little Alice falling through Wonderland,
chasing rabbits, trying to find the
right mushrooms
the right
doors;
exploring the way little girls
should.
When you were taken against your will
in the back
against a slab of wood:
that was not your fault.
I believe you.
Alice, you’re going to grow up and you’re going to try to forget,
but one day, you will hear a poem so hard your eyes will grow wet;
and you will have
no
other
recourse
than to remember that you were taken by force
and realize
that your eyes were not playing you.
There was a power
you were overpowered
you were taken advantage of
and there was nothing you could do.
Dear Alice, it was not your fault mama was too high to see it.
It was not your fault mama would rather live off the power and the money and whatever she could get for herself
to see that her only daughter was being dragged through shit.
Dear Alice, my dear sweet girl, that rabbit you were trying to chase is still there.
The rabbit that will save you mentally, emotionally...
that rabbit will take you places you wouldn’t dare.
The rabbit teaches you that time is a construct,
but some things that get stuck in your head are meant to rot.
No, dear Alice, no...because sometimes
when the Queen of Hearts wants to chop off your head off
the Aces and the Jokers are the ones that come to stay.
Sometimes it’s the people you think are only around to play
that will save you
from who you think you are.
Dear Alice; listen to me, and listen to me now.
Paint the roses red!
Paint them blue!
Paint them indigo!
Do what you have to do to
get out
of your own prison;
of your own mind.
‘cause some people, my dear Alice?
Some people are genuinely kind.
Some of them will free you.
Some of them will make you realize
that the shackles of the golden cage you’ve lived in all your life
are worth nothing if you don’t learn
to take back the light
that that man stole from you that night.
Dear Alice,
whoever says that people are making shit up--
oh my god!
Brett Kavanaugh, no!
That’s a no brainer!
Dear Alice:
Whether it’s Trump, whether it’s Duterte, whether it’s your mom, whether it’s miss “Kolorete”
the one professor--teacher!--you thought you could trust
shoving you away
blowing you off like dust...
Alice, my love, somebody believes you.
‘cause at the end of the day, that Wonderland that was “taken”?
It was never really taken at all.
It’s in your head.
It’s a giant mall!
You can buy what you want, sure,
but maybe sometimes what occurs inside is pure.
Maybe, dear Alice, all you need is to be told what I’m telling you now.
#Pride month may have passed but pride in general lasts a lifetime! Grateful beyond words for this surprise bundle of @oldnavy #Pride2018 goodness! 🌹🏳️🌈 ✨ #lovewins #loveisallweneed (at Quezon City, Philippines)
If you have P50 and around 30m to spare (plus patience for rowdy/screaming children if you have the misfortune of being there during a field trip) visit @theshoemuseummarikina! Lovely piece of Philippine history in terms of ingenuity, hard work, and fashion. (Except the Imelda collection. That was just garish extravagance on her part at the expense of Filipinos...but I digress. #MarcosNOTAHero) Visited for a paper and got a lovely OJT as a guide who gamely answered my questions and shared some cool facts. The sidewalk outside has famous Marikina folks’ names on plaques with shoes. I found Raimund Marasigan! #theshoemuseum #shoemuseum #history #Philippinehistory #fashion #museum (at Shoe Museum Marikina City)
TOMORROW IS THE DAY | Don't miss "TRANSCEND: Faces, Places, Places" this July 27, 2018, 9AM to 5:30PM at _Gallery at ASPACE Philippines! Follow us on on Twitter @mentalhealth_ph for updates! #MentalHealthPH #MHTranscend2018 #thrivetayo (at ASPACE Philippines)
[Birthday love to the tune of Wrote My Way Out from @hamiltonmusical by Lin-Manuel Miranda, for @kassandra_tate and @kalinatyne. With all my head and heart. 🎂]
#throwbackthursday / #tbt: Queen @alodia at her 2011 #cosplay contest #Alodia’s Fantasy! Babydoll from Sucker Punch, sword and all (swipe for more). 🍭 Was lucky enough to get backstage that night and shoot these candids with my now-gone Sony DSLR. Wish I still had the HD files, but it is what it is. 😬 Tagging King Tsonggo @wil_dasovich so he can see since this was way before they even met hehe. #AlodiasFantasy #babydoll #suckerpunch #alodiagosiengfiao #cosplayqueen #cosplayphotography #cosplayphilippines #indigopai (at Icon @ Intercontinental Manila)
The light is coming to give back everything the darkness stole. When you come for me, I keep on flourishing. 👑 • • • #iphoneography by @iamtoni_martinez with his #iPhoneX (at Greenhills, San Juan)
Met the iconic Dra. @margaritaholmes6278 today...and I don’t remember what I said! 🙊 Pretty sure I was able to thank her for the forward thinking and sex education as I was following her work as an oft-hospitalised geek growing up in the ‘90s? And...uh, and I asked her if we could do...lunch? I think. 😅😅😅 She is one of the pillars of opening the conversation regarding sex and sexuality in our heavily conservative Catholic country. An icon!!! #starstruck (at U.P. Town Center)
I met my SHE-ro @kaysarahsera tonight, alongside the infallible wonderment that is @peekaye. It was all thanks to #PVManila2018. For the nth year in a row @projvoice graced Manila with both Sarah and Phil. For the first time, I saw them live: FRONT ROW. I also learned and heard the incredible “Chameleon” by Abby Orbeta which impacted me greatly. Oh and because of @sergiegabriel I actually performed on the UP Theater stage during the open mic. That was incredibly empowering. Cried through most of the show proper, cried and almost hyperventilated in line to meet Sarah and Phil...yet somehow kept my wits enough to thank her for the poems and style of writing that has saved me from the depths. I think I showed her my scars—my memory is fuzzy. Hell, I almost walked away without handing her my baked gift. I forgot to give Phil his gift entirely. I tried vlogging and will definitely be blogging about this night, but let me tell you: for someone so broke/trying to make ends meet, I felt like a million dollars. I felt ALIVE. (at University Theater, UP Diliman)
Super productive meeting with @hidingkata who surprised me with this gorgeous sketch as a birthday gift! We were them both surprised by @el.ioraa walking in the door. 😂 PH art is a small happy world and I’m so grateful to have these people in my life. (Also...expect more from me and Kata. SOON.) (at Cydnei's Cafe)
