Quiet affection kept behind closed doors—
The poets had tried to keep us a secret,
While the damnation of hell
Continued to gnaw off my right ear
As it chanted again and again and again:
ILLICIT. TABOO. DEBARRED.
Though, at the very least,
The words coiled together
And dissolved into thin air
Whenever you were near.
(Quickly, now! Kiss me!
While God still had his back turned around.
Tomorrow, we'd have to pretend
That we did not know of love
So He could keep on looking after us.)
Shielded affection, birthed under the protection of leaves—
Beneath the shade of a sturdy oak tree,
Molded from our own memories,
With our hands settled across our thighs.
I had wondered what was so wrong,
For wanting our love to be bared;
For looking at a girl the same way,
A wife longed for a husband.
It was still love, after all—
Your touch that lingered in the pocket of my dress,
My eyes looked at the shape of your lips for too long.
(Forgive me, for they were merely an instrument
To the imperishable want residing in my stomach.
Forgive me, for I was selfish enough
to experience hell
If it meant I could continue wanting you.)
Brilliant affection knocked on my window—
My eyes began to blur from your luminance.
Perhaps it had been a punishment,
For glancing at you in the first place.
But you kept on sprinkling imprints;
All over my skin,
And that, that part of you—
That part of love,
And that part of loneliness,
Still stayed;
Long after my mother had told me
That we'd be burned into ashes
If I wouldn't remain untempt
To the devil's advances.
(And I shall pray to the God my mother loved,
I shall ask Him for His lenience and your protection,
But I will not ask for mine.
For even if He stops loving me for my sins,
I will never stop loving you.
Photo from:
salisart
Published by: Airene Nicole Q. Pamintuan
Date Published: February 13, 2022
Time Published: 6:16 PM
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