The Art of Misdirection

University Writer & Editor | Drury University Poetry Outreach Director | Poets' Corner SGF Newsletter Captain | Springfield Tenants Unite Filipino American Poet, Chef, Musician, & Organizer

[the-literary-alchemist]

No new poems right now, just a lot of housing justice activism on my end. Poetry will eventually arrive -- tenants' rights are just my focus rn.

[the-literary-alchemist]

[the-literary-alchemist]

I am afraid a lot of the poetry I have been observing on here (poetry that rhymes produced by writers with high output) is AI generated, and that's a shame.

[the-literary-alchemist]

I may not look like it, but I can bench up to 275 lbs. My goal is to PR at 285 by August.

[the-literary-alchemist]

History & Inheritance

They named us after survivors. Ybañez — letters twisted to outrun the persecution. A name that ducked beneath Moorish steel & sat quietly at the feet of the cross. They said

sovereignty was holy as it whipped like a flag & appeared like a god that looked nothing like them. My father carried the name like a crown & a curse,

mouth full of empire, hands full of thunder. He crossed the ocean with fifty dollars & fire, sang in English, but then beat us children in Bisaya.

He called me broken for not speaking fast enough, not obeying deeply enough. Said I’d never make it if I stayed soft. But

there was always another voice — a quieter one always present beside me on the bathroom tile as I wept, one I cannot understand fully but asked me to rise.

My name is still colonized. My voice is not. I was not meant to kneel. I do not. I am not my father. I am not Magellan.

… I am Lapu-Lapu’s aftershock — brown-blooded, half-breed, but full blade. & I come from islands where people fought for their sun. I am

what seas remember when they refuse chains. My name survived because we learned to bow. But I have learned to speak with breath my father tried to beat out of me.

And that other voice kneels beside me — not to rule, carrying no sword, yet open with arms bearing loud wounds, looking like mine.

So every word: a scar’s refrain. & every line: a blade with fangs. & every poem: a tyrant slain.

— X. Y.

[the-literary-alchemist]

What I Meant by Not Getting You Flowers

When I confessed to having feelings, you admitted romance makes you feel your insides are erupting, which is the reason I didn’t get you flowers on Valentine’s Day. It was then, after we had dinner that you told me you love flowers, that when you and your brother go to a market, you find each other looking at day-old flowers wrapped in cellophane. That’s my problem: I never ask enough questions, get scared a suggestion might push you (or anyone in my life) away, then think things are moving too fast. It’s cost me opportunities not being curious enough, but now I'm choosing you & am doing my best asking for help when I need it, though I’m stubborn & hate bothering anyone for anything. That’s not the point I’m wanting to make. You keep arriving, even when the tension to run away & vanish keeps the possibility open. I’m so happy you haven’t — you came out to one of my shows on a Thursday. I didn't have any expectation you’d show up, so that following Saturday, I had pink & white carnations ready for you. You didn’t understand, but maybe the next time you see flowers at the market, you’ll think of me — more importantly, you’ll think of yourself & grab a bouquet for your gray cubicle or the home you wish to build.

— X. Y.

[the-literary-alchemist]

Rapture

It’s not what you

think it will be   In fact

  it’s not what you

think it is   One day

  I may be gone

                            without a

trace   & my absence

will permeate a hole

  in existence

                         I gave up

the notion of vanishing

on my own accord   but

  here we are   in 2025   &

the spaces grow 

                             There’s

nowhere to go   Doesn’t

matter if I was born

                                 here

   & now even more   I

starve to live   even to old

age   but they will come

for me   They will hunt

  I will fight   I will live

as long as I can

                                until

  I can't move   So

let’s press into the future

  just   a   little   more

      maybe create our

own second coming

                                    &

tilt the outcome

                        ever

                                  so

              slightly

— X. Y.

[the-literary-alchemist]

Ripened Myth

You exist in the soft folds of myth, yet I get to experience the tangibility of your truth, how it undulates in frequencies,

especially when you let lyrics leap from your lips. They drip like the golden flesh of sun-kissed mangoes I devour & savor

on days when your absence lingers. Yet I still taste your essence: ripe, lush, & impossible to explain even as

your songs slide down my fingers, into my palm, like fruit from a dream — its sweetness lasting long after waking.

— X. Y.

[the-literary-alchemist]

THE SWORD SHE WROTE

On scrap paper we scrawl the workings of a concept album, riffing off another, storyboarding with illustrations, alluding pain itself & what remains after we spend our days.

You admitted when I read one of my poems to you that it was the first time you realized your own flame, & you opened up like a holy book to unmask every veil shielding all inhibitions.

I know I had said "Don't give time to fear — give fear over to time." But this was the first time I witnessed you, undressing pages of your journey in a flash of genius, eyes welling, a quiver in your voice, watching power manifest in every breath.

Then light spilled through you as you massaged tallow into my hands. You held me as if you were polishing your prized weapon, figuring where the hilt would rest & where the guard would protect your grip.

Wordsplay or swordplay, they are the same here. What an honor to be chosen like this to fight for you — the sheer strength we possess together, the fire we have built illuminating the path to eternity.

— X. Y.

[the-literary-alchemist]

"The sculpted bust always outlasts the citadel." — Theophile Gautier

Art, if fact, attempts the future every time.

— X. Y.

[the-literary-alchemist]

Kintsugi is a Japanese art form that involves repairing broken pottery with lacquer and powdered precious metals, finished with gold, silver, or platinum highlights where the cracks had once formed, making the object more unique and valuable.

The process can take up to three months, as the fragments are glued together with urushi, a durable, water-resistant lacquer made from the sap of a Japanese tree.

And I am fucked up over its definition 🪦

— X. Y.

[the-literary-alchemist]

What if I told you that fear can be transformed to be your superpower? To think that a little fight-or-flight might ground you in the present moment.

Anxiety for me is a reflection of apathy, a recognition of fatigue, and the realization of how mechanical we all feel being slaves to a system in which we had no say in its creation and implementation — and there is always a call to action.

Yes, the weight of the world is paralyzing, and that's why we need good stories. We cannot give in. We must let anxiety influence us instead of shutting down, whether we play vanguard or retreat to recuperate.

Ah, but an influence is only a ripple and never the root, not a guide but a consideration. What we decided now will forever shape the course of your life. And we must be responsible for it.

The opposite of apathy is vitality. Anxiety is its catalyst.

— X. Y.

[the-literary-alchemist]

"Hanami" is the tradition of picnicking underneath a Sakura tree, or what we know as cherry blossoms. Their buds and flowers pop so quickly only to sprinkle across the ground, like they've erupted in the passionate fury of spring. This idea of transience is known as "mono no aware" — the pathos of things. We are here for a season, and then we are gone. We blink, and we are left with all our decisions at the remains of our days.

Maybe we are just visitors to others' individual worlds. Maybe we stay. When a moment falls into the past, it is forever categorized as history. But sometimes, you find yourself at the most unique intersections — cosmic collisions — where you shoot from one end of space and crash into another celestial energy. Our blip in time is only relative due to how we trace the length of daylight and darkness waltzing with another.

Is there truly a difference between a second and a century? I've lived long enough to know that both are plenty.

[the-literary-alchemist]

The Face of Another

Now look at you, sitting where the light corrupts your face. How its brilliant scheme proves your pride like peacock feathers. One could melt, maybe sweat themselves worse by locking into  our mute countenance.

In their eyes, you might see the heavens as you set them on fire, all the galaxies gushing over you & then rushing to the hexed vortices because light corrupts your face: ruined & damned to perceive the ineffable, cursed to be a smile in all mirrors, a ripple felt on the web of time.

How utterly infectious one must be to live inside golden hour throughout every season, second, & dimension to love this eccentric world despite the loss, loss, loss.

— X. Y.

[the-literary-alchemist]

"Poets' Corner SGF"

When you go to open mic you'll

open your maw & spit with delight

as you sprinkle light across that stage

like dipping apothecarial ingredients

from your phone or the page Hell yes

go say a poem go rally go strike

Let's go to Poets' Corner where

we speak we slam we cry we jam

goddamn we go to town and jab

our maddest gab our gift to reason

our charm for rhyme Now it's our time to shine

because its poetry season tonight

—X. Y.

[the-literary-alchemist]

Bokeh

In a Claude Monet painting, I spy with my little eye a field of flowers—

how poppies from afar blink so clearly en plein air. Just before they are tied

tightly among a bouquet, they haze into mush, crushed from clearness, clashing together

upon a blurred flurry. What a horrific, beautiful thing: a hurried imagination

now tarried. Today, life itself seems out of focus in impression, though I know

it is never in ideas but in things. Sometimes objects are never what they seem,

& appearance is just another way to say what is present is visual snow. We find ourselves

sunken into static transitions, trapped with dreaded elevator music humming at

low frequencies. But whether in a fog or a field of flowers, we’re coming. Now I’m

arriving in my own rendition of life as I spy with my little eye a poem in a window.

[the-literary-alchemist]

The Space Between Seconds

Consider this: between every second I often wonder if you’ve eaten or taken your Vitamin D. When

these thoughts come to me, I am usually at my computer writing words for projects at work, for

strategies that others should implement, for poems that have nothing to do l with us. I read recently that

helpfulness is a weak & pathological disguise for “control.” I don't think this is my case at all, yet I trust you would let me

know. I just think there are plenty of obstacles in my way that keep me from being whole. But I have to admit

the pace this takes feels like eons, that I form into a softness when you are around. All my steps seem to be

some kind of rehearsal for an imperfect slow dance, though I’m certain whatever future we bring will

be the right answer to our mazes of thoughts, of dreams, of visions that lift us from our beds & sink us into

a field of flowers. I count my breaths between these seconds. They are fleeting, but this sleep takes its time dragging me

further into the soil. I have so much life left, & you are always love’s most favorite recipient. It doesn't always

have to come from me, but it’s available always like the promise of shadows waltzing with their sundials.

— X. Y.