This Paper Will Bleed (edit.)

This Paper Will Bleed

Once bare,
like the midnight sky on New
Year’s Eve in Davao wrapped in
muffled rain shower,
no smelling of gunpowder,
no screaming of bright lights,
black and white thoughts of
a sick young poet will fill
this blank paper.
Once an empty shell, this
thin crust will house a citadel of outpouring
wild and savage emotions,
gashing forth the poet’s black
lead, white ink, fake tears and fresh drool
on the whiteness of its skin,
playing the fortune-teller that he is.

Once young,
like the virgin pulp from which
it is made, the moment
this paper will leave its nest,
the harbour of the young poet’s mind,
it will live and die at the same time.
It will flourish away from its parents to
live what has been foretold,
to fulfil a prophecy.
It will live to glorify the poet’s words,
and die for the sake of it.

Once true,
like the purity and nakedness it
truly conveys, it once possessed,
this paper will bleed on the hands
of the fortune-teller’s oppressors:
his classmates, his teachers, his idols, his gods.
And like the back of his hands,
the poet will know that
this paper will bleed like an
assassinated congressman,
fire-cracked fingers, or
any tomato-pasted dish.

And once used,
it will strip off its essence
and will emulate an identity:
not the nakedness it once gleamed,
nor the youthfulness it once owned,
especially not the truthfulness
it will always live by to deny;
but it will continue to live, to imitate
only the face of the pale young poet
draining with what words he wanted to write.