Pieces Into Place

Joed's Map of Recreation 

[piscesnpieces]

a perfect routine

(2025-10-13)

i woke up at the sound of my alarm

5:30 AM— i set it up like that

the pattern is to wake up, eat, take a bath, go to work

I've lived like that the past few years

yet, this morning i woke up before the familiar ringing

i went to the bathroom and stared at the mirror

i forget to look every now and then

and so i found someone unfamiliar

eyes staring back—hollow—

he's lost the glint that made coins rust in comparison

a face drooping, like a cat in a box suddenly dying when observed

he lived these years in a cycle of manufactured beliefs

that the passion is reserved for the academe

and the passion for passion's sake is wasted on wayward thinking

and that beyond science is meaning with no structure

but he knew

he knew that there is meaning nonetheless

and in a world of fenced properties

any meaning to life is its worth for living

yet he forgot

like i forgot

the face that stared back at me

uncanny in the mirror

and so i washed my face and brushed my teeth

and went along my silly routine

for days and days to come

but since then i grew an itch behind my ear

like it knew

that man in the mirror wished

a way out of his stagnant world

all i had to do was break off my pace

turn my feet around and lose its usual gait

and scratch that itch behind my ear

and regain my strength to wonder

but i hold back

it's a terror to look back when all you have known is where you are

where comfort screams safe

where stillness is peace;

still

every morning i wake to my alarm

rush to the bathroom

and stay a bit to stare

until maybe the face that looks back starts to become familiar

even by a small fraction of who he was

until every strand of his hair reflects mine

no matter how long

he knows there is still time

i know there is still time

i hope there is still time

[piscesnpieces]

Ergo Sum

In life I find happiness in things that my eyes cannot see, Nor my ears could hear, my skin could touch, Except that which the mind thinks is real And what others might feel.

I am borne of nothing — nay, borne of love spoken Without words; who’s to say I wasn’t? And I live between the nothingness before birth And the nothingness in death.

Today I exist beyond nothing, for I am seen. My momentary escape is an orchestra Made of people, places, and things Seaming me into their senses.

I keep my happiness in a jar within my mind. I imagine it full, and overflowed Then I pour it over someone else’s And become their second fiddle, or so Playing over notes of their being.

When I return to nothing I pray That which I cannot see, hear, nor touch What my mind creates: love, empathy, and such Stay overflowing from someone else’s jars To another —

That happiness continues in the living And that I, borne of nothing, and back Brought it to existence.

[piscesnpieces]

Sighs of the departed emanate from graves

Glowing— a sign of Earth's caress deficient

To lay their souls to rest

I walk these yards perplexed by the

Limit of God's gift— that life is only life if lived

And what survives is mere, suffering

Turning to the smoke from kindling ash

I remember their faces— yet to suffer

Emboldened by their thick blood

Now spilled only to wash thieved dirt

On the land history begs to remember—

Shores entwined in marriage to lives from long ago

I stare at the bellowing elephant all white

Justice— her stature unfazed

She peeks behind her tattered cloak— and I pray

Pray she sees the eyes unshut in death

Rip her flagrant scales tipped over by crimson

Wealth, and rescind her unjust decree

Survivors, barely, in noise and daily grief

Though skies apart I am witness to their mistrial

And I shame the world that blinks

Lend your eyes on the river to the sea— resolute

And like the birds, all of their people

Wrapped in gauze— they will fly free

—

[piscesnpieces]

tender nights

When all this is over, where do I stand?

When the wind breaks my words, on the precipice so high

You have put me out of reach from you

Behind glass you could adore but never touch

Tumble, or climb, just reach for me

For my hand I've tired swinging down on my knees

Break or bore a hole in the glass and feel my skin

In all its flawed and tainted glory

I have died and been remade

I beg, keep me in your likeness

The silent language our tongues speak

Pray my mouth never forgets

Take my rope and pull it

Split the noose I've tied myself

Weave my threads instead

On your veins, in your blood, ever safe

[piscesnpieces]

Every stone turned chasing shadows in the sun Staring at clock hands that wait for no one As the world turns every so slightly but never stopping I thought I was meant to be unmoving

Witness to greatness and loss combined My eyes saw wonder outside their lids Hollow inside, unchanging No spark could burn a blaze within

But they took you in, my eyes Your breath along with sunlight The voice that blends with ocean breeze A timid shore the ebbing tide revealed

People glare at too much things, despair at too little But one who knew none of those Took everything you gave until the cup it had Overflowed, your lips a sealing testament

Love, it was called The unwritten language no tongue can ever speak Besides tongues that only touch each other It was ours, it was more

I began to move along with the world Steps on rocky sheets chasing pavements you have walked Clock hands left behind in my stride Love has set me free

To be loved is to be changed To be loved is to be moved In your orbit I revolve My sun, you are the body I adore now and evermore

———

2023/02/14 ~ Happy Valentine's Day ~

[piscesnpieces]

lullabies for the woeful, and the words that seem to follow

Sometimes I wonder about dying.

I am not a particularly sad person. I have people who love me. I have people who will be willing to give half their all just to pour into my dripping glass. In simple terms, I am not alone. But sometimes, I am lonely, and being lonely makes you wonder about things you would never think about on the regular. Like dying. 

I’m not exactly afraid to die. Every organism dies at one point. It’s an undisputable fact that governs the living. To me, dying is a certain type of peace. Religion divides the world with the concept of an afterlife. But for the physical, carbon-based structure of a man, lying 6-feet down deep without any worry of the world is peace. Still, I do not long for it, at least not yet. 

Someone asked me before what I feared most, if not death. I didn't have a direct answer. For most of my life, everything that triggered my adrenaline, I got through. Should I still consider that a fear? I didn't think so. Is fear of God counted? That’s debatable. However, as more people asked, I began to worry for an answer. What did I fear most? It wasn't anything too shocking, I found out. I feared being lonely. I thought it was autophobia—the fear of being alone—but for most of my life, I never was. Yet I still feared. I discovered I could get lonely, easily, despite company. Even God forgives, loneliness does not. The thought made me anxious. 

Having fear gives you two options: you fight it head on, or you get away. In this case though, the former is the sole answer. And after fighting each outburst head on, you learn to hit back. You learn how to maneuver each swing, how to analyze the fear and set aside your emotion. Fear then materializes into an existing, rational enemy—and you learn to win. But every win comes at a cost. Each time you encounter your fear, it takes something from you. Every drip of happiness you kept in a bottle spills. You win the battle, but the longer it gets to overcome the multiple bouts in the ring, your fists become exhausted, until your limbs eventually also leave you with no other option to take. Then I wonder if life would likewise follow. 

I guess I'm an asshole. The glee I collect from the people around me, it keeps me afloat. I think it's safe to say I used them. Sometimes loving and taking advantage blurs in the periphery, and I can only try and be less of the asshole I already am. 

Loneliness finds a way, even with people around. They might not say, or they might not notice, but when fear consumes, I take more than what they give, until they can't give me any more before theirs turn empty, then I leave and take from another. Until when can they pour so that my glass never empties? I get anxious and vexed. But what can I do? I still want to survive. So I apologize, for being selfish. Don't worry, though. Sometimes I'd rather not take, or bother, or hurt. Then I would wonder about tipping over, spilling everything that’s left. I wonder what it will be like to let go.

This fear— it trips my mind. Sometimes I look for people to mask the lonely. Sometimes, despite people, it couldn't help but show. Still, I want to believe that I'll survive. I only wonder, I never want. People have been rather too kind and I'm grateful. I answer by fighting back. Until then, I ask, for at least one to keep my glass filled. I can't afford to go empty.

[piscesnpieces]

a meddled hankering

lovesick, shy of any cure patient zero in this sly allure therapy writes no sound review addressed to my inner saboteur

brushes breeze the palette in brash on canvas paper thin none of three strikes limiting strokes of candor from within 

inherent vices sabotage cold air creeps my weak barrage smoke engulfs the world at large as nothing beats a sad montage 

smiles elope as grief endures the silver lining rusts assured greyscale blinds the light obscure and leaves the morning too unsure

[piscesnpieces]

As we begin the countdown towards the new year, gusto ko lang magshare ng synthesis ko on a lot of things. This year was a transition year. We came from settling down in our own houses over the pandemic and then finally getting to live outside of that isolation. I can't speak for everyone, so I might just talk from my own perspective. It's the year I finally went back to QC, living alone (technically with a unit-mate, but you get the picture) under the pretense of finding work. I juggled online classes and my time in the lab for work, thankful for the leeway in the schedules with both. I met new people, ones I get to keep in a good light, and some who I'll be letting go the same year I met them. Regrettably, I also learned that I couldn't please everyone. I can't welcome people into the well that is my emotionally-driven thinking as much as I want them to. After more than a year in isolation, many realizations have formed, and this transition adds more to that, some that I've experienced for the very first time in my life. Even so, I am very thankful. I'm thankful for the chance of getting myself out there despite everything that happened. I'm thankful that I tried to relay my thoughts and feelings, even though not everybody welcomed them with open arms — I'm utmost grateful to the people that did. You know who you guys are. I'm as open to your thoughts as you were to me, so go hit me with your best shots. This coming year, I want us to be more careful. Not just because of the new variant, which right now I believe is causing another surge of infections (please prioritize your health guys), but also to be careful of setting your boundaries and holding on to your morals in every situation you encounter. It makes me sad that misunderstandings can pile up whenever you try to speak your mind, but it's a great disservice to yourself if you put yourself down just to please everybody. Let anyone who isn't pleased dwell and marinate in your words. Finally, I want everyone to also be careful with your words. I admit that sometimes I can be tactless, talking before arranging my thoughts the best way they can be delivered, and this is also probably why people tend to misunderstand me. But please, please be open to a conversation. Talk to people about how you were wrong, about how your words were reckless and hurt the people who were there to listen. Acknowledge your mistakes and do not take those who lent an ear for granted. Words have power and they hurt, to the point that bridges might get burned without any way of rebuilding them. But at the same time, with the passage of time, words can bandage those holes, and with the right timing and precise organization of thoughts, those bridges might get fixed again. We never know. As what everyone who's been reading this probably thinks, yes, I've been talking to myself too, mostly. This is a call to myself, a transition, reflecting the motion of the year with my jumping into the new year. I'm excited, anxious, and curious, but I strongly believe that the coming year would be a better one for all of us. This reflection is because I really needed to manifest a new year ahead, latching on to the hope of a new year, a new day. And I believe one is coming. So thank you again to everyone who's beside me all this time, who's beside me from this year on, and who will be willing to stay beside me for the year to come. I love you all too much. I'll never be able to move through with this hope without your conversations, your trust, and your encouragement. Even those who I let go, and have let me go, I'm grateful for the time we spent together. Your time with me was valuable, and rest assured I'll remember them. Happy new year, everyone. Only better days ahead.

[piscesnpieces]

it’s the most wonderful time of the year

the way december plays with the air i breathe resembles the sea when the wind picks up and brews a storm, thrashing into shore the foam that bubbles up like every word i have left to say. 

it aches to form phrases to call an episode of a subtle afternoon alone, with ambient noises hitting up percussions that cloud the mind from thinking straight. 

this month feels like a chore, and as i grow older i see putting up holiday decors less in the spirit of giving and more of grieving, because the flicker reminds me of what once was a happy memory, and i grieve its loss. 

the end of the year resembles the loose thread on my shirt i itch to pull, to pull and pull until my fit is ruined, and so finally i stop believing i could fix it by just trying to make loose threads go away. 

it's funny how the sun sets earlier; i wish I could do that too. i envy the sun for seeing less of the days that only bring me pain. 

perhaps december plays with pain the way it echoes pleasure, but i fear the whip and blame the stick for the hurt, when i myself went in search of it.

it's true when they say ignorance is bliss, and i wish i never knew when the year ends, then i could stop december from filling up my thoughts. 

i can stop awaiting the end of a hefty episode that never feels over. i could suck it up longer.

i could feel as if surviving is not because of hope that the year is ending, but because that's how i am supposed to be. 

whether in pain, or pleasure, in gain, or loss, i am surviving. 

'when will all this end?' i'd wonder.

the curiosity would keep me going.

[piscesnpieces]

swing

one minute my restraint fell through i'd longed to see your hue like the sky turning gray such a fickle dismay that only i was left so blue

- 2020/07/24 -

[piscesnpieces]

The Expanse.

[piscesnpieces]

infallible

there is no such thing. if God were meant to be perfect, and in his image we were made, then there goes the infallibility. we are mere imperfect beings that scrape the land to survive. hollow bodies that fake peace upon a mountain of stolen gold. creatures that sin for commodity, earning profit from the illusion of being fair. we steal, we give, we envy, we exalt, we anger, we love. synesthetic colors that spell neither flawlessness nor perfection. but to someone who can see the imperfection of it all, they would probably find beauty. they would only see beauty.

---

trifecta -poem series #1-

[piscesnpieces]

calypso

many years i’ve lived apart from everyone, alone in my island. then i met you —you who’ve stumbled accidentally into my cove and left your footprints on the sand. i scrambled to make you stay, laying promises i marked in stone, written in injury with nascent blood that moved from stagnancy in my veins. we spent a time intangible to anyone else, for only our hands could touch the fine line that we crossed every moment we awake. but one morning you said you had to go, that your conscience betrayed your promise meant for another, and could not keep your soles at my shore. comprehension escaped me and confusion gladly made itself at home. you broke the branch that grew in spring, took its wood and made a boat. the sea clashed your sail, vowing to let no other sailor through. i watched you disappear in the horizon, meeting the sunset facing what you left behind —your footprints lost to the violence of the waves rebuilding its walls. many firsts ended in defeat, left only counting the days i lost you with gravel from the foundations you broke. it will only be a matter of time until you forget, like the waves that ebb back and forth. but the blood i spilled would never be washed away.

---

trifecta -poem series #1-

[piscesnpieces]

14 days

i once envied immortals, beings death escapes from. the line they could trace on the surface of the earth for an immeasurable time with all the wealth they could come to accumulate. but in the short time i met eternity, i craved to lose its shackles. immortality births isolation, and in isolation i became alone. i met eternity in the minutes before i slept. i met eternity in the seconds after i wake. i met eternity everyday, greeting me in solitude apart from an existence worth calling a life. tomorrow i might never meet them again, but the ache will remain. if death meant living, in that short span of eternity i longed for it. apart from that eternity i will long for it. i do not wish to live forever.

---

trifecta -poem series #1-

[piscesnpieces]

my lover has no face

he speaks in tongues and stares through eyes that do not constitute a figure familiar to anyone who sees them 

he listens in deep through ears that do not conform to symmetry and crowns his head with strands that bear no weight 

his limbs defy da vinci —a vitruvian form undefined by any artist's render and moves according to no specific manner 

he breaks silence with a voice that holds truth in its words and feigns no ignorance to a cloud of discord between our sentences 

he rests his troubles on my hands the way he holds mine awkwardly in a form that mimics my heart in which he settles 

he wraps my body in comfort without a blanket of prejudice and carries it rid of pride over the betterment of the other 

his face obscures but harbors value, so when his soul departs his gospel remains to be seen in others that walk beside me 

and when i peer the image forming in the mirror then i could learn to love what's looking back —the way i loved him in many ways before

[piscesnpieces]

the inconsequential existence

tens of thousands of stars in the sky the unimaginable traces them to infinity upon the obsidian map above the concrete manifestation of humanity's dreams 

i follow the lines as my neck strains from the constant pull of the universe upwards the cosmos of anxious endeavors that a lone man's curiosity can kill 

in tune with the orbit i form thoughts that strengthen the foundation of the earth holding up the numerous ambitions of a billion little souls born of wanting 

it is in silence i ponder in the black pool of my place across the ether taking up just a smidgen in the canvas built by paint and chisel to last a lifetime 

how is it that one insignificance can bear a multitude of wonder and dread that the sphere of life afloat the vacuum cannot dare comprehend its wealth? 

for something so small and inutile to break apart in awful discomfort and carry the weight of the world entirely should not its value bloom? 

well— i am but a portion of who i was when the sky first met my face a face that lost its wonder of the world that now only knows its futility 

if i fell out of sight, glory, and of might should the universe leave me out of spite where now do these thoughts lay? improbably close to nowhere would do

just a single dot across the map lit of stars just a single drop of tint in the canvas my existence can only beg to argue for only then therefore i am

[piscesnpieces]

cold-ridden

the needle drops from the glass encasing signaling the entry of the cold it probably has always been there i just didn't notice at first the warmth kept it well-hidden in the trenches off the cliff i nearly drowned in but that time i was rescued and warmth kept me alive through a towel my mother wrapped me up in —that was then at present a piece of cloth bears nothing compared to written sorcery your fingers scramble to define me into a being that could fly above the waters and escape the withering cold and yet as time went by the clouds start freezing my feet as if water to create snow only flowed in the veins of my lower limbs i struggle to stay afloat as the ice traversed my body chipping off piece by piece the being your odes have formed wishing it be recreated wishing it be restored wishing— wishing it stay warm above the freezing depth it once escaped from but your fingers couldn't teach each other the right motions they could not agree with themselves and couldn't save what it once considered a masterpiece of magic and now froths form above the ocean awaiting my demise to house this body once more until a form of warmth comes along be it clothing or words to wrap me up cozy and perhaps indifferent to the cold's existence