Five uncommon friendships at a time of common love
Poem in English with impoku Kristang
Speak to me, bold Anfim. Tell me who I am. Papiah kung yo.
Because I cannot speak to myself.
I only speak to myself in your heartbeats,
when I lie in your room, on your bed, on your chest,
nose pressed gently against nose,
fear pressed gently against fear,
embraced by a courage that is best expressed
in the hands that interlock with mine
that have found a way to wash across riverine veins, intresmiu riu,
the tide painting itself against the coastline, over and over,
craggy, palm-peppered hills nuzzling against lush jungle plains,
gentle brushstrokes soothing the lattice of a hundred thousand scars
as a friend,
as one who loves me without the jealousy of possession,
without the sealing bond of ruler and ruled,
without the hundred thousand days of not knowing what it is like
to understand how I could possibly never have understood
to be held by one so full of dream-sand as you.
Dream of me, gentle Levan. Dream of who I am. Sunyah kung yo.
Because I cannot dream of myself.
I only dream of myself in your gods, bos sa deus,
on your altars and in your temples,
beneath your statues and around the tersu that you grip between your fingers,
your calls to divinity, your songs of something higher,
higher than the heights of emptiness that rose in both of us for years, and years, and years,
higher than the years of love for me you cannot explain
higher than the way your hands grip mine, tremulously,
as if your head is still spinning and has never left the ground
as if your dance is falling apart,
breaking into rivers of sacred, coherent solace
that I alone have heard you cry for
in the secret places that echo in the laughter in your eyes,
in your rush to prove that the gods help you to exist as their secret light,
when you and I both secretly know that our own darknesses will never allow us to be anything more
than two shadow-puppets among a hundred thousand
believing themselves to be human enough
to ever make sense to the other
minstrel-players of their own show of nothing.
Show me, faithful Euprus. Show me who I am. Mostrah pra yo.
Because I cannot see myself.
I only see myself in your escapes,
when I watch you run away, knowing you know I'm watching you run away,
borne aloft by racing, grinning loneliness.
Nang fuzih, yo sa korsang moli.
Every laugh is erased
when your face freezes, perturbed in joy
all sense of time lost in the way your body locks into mine
when I lie in your lap and let my courage caress your arms,
neither lover, neither stranger,
just a fellow traveller sitting on the steps of the house that left you behind
just a fellow wanderer sitting you down, one flash, one silent breath at a time
just a boy as lost as you are, lost since that day
you turned twelve and thirteen and twenty-six and every year since, all at once,
when you turned the corner at the edge of the compound, believing you were finally free,
and there was loss, sitting in the dirt, drawing circles in the sand around you, already waiting,
with its hundred thousand impulses
its hundred thousand insensitivities
its hundred thousand days of never knowing
of never seeing how the escape
is an escape from the freedom of freedom's endless yearning
an emptying of what seeks to be whole.
Hold me, humble Simchar. Hold all that I am. Abrasah kung yo.
Because I cannot hold myself.
I can only hold myself when you dare to hold me
As if every day is that day, that beautiful day, when you dared to touch the sun,
dared to be penglipur lara , dared to try to soothe the worries that filled the harbours of my soul,
Knowing full well that the heat of the day would melt the walls that held your prison for so long,
and cast you into the emptiness of zeal,
free to be enslaved anew.
To see again the bliss you still hold in your sad smile,
Is to taste again childhood's first lessons over and over,
Is to smell again every moment spent immersed in the clay of hope that once inundated your heart,
and now only tells of the monsoons that have obscured your islands from view.
Mas nenang kabah.
No matter how near or how far,
we are both only pilgrims in the storm,
Fireflies in the swamp,
Strangers playing at friends, friends playing at divinities,
songs playing at stories.
And oh, how the way your heart yearns to sing
still lifts mine beyond these rationalities, these base, lowly calls of the intellect
into the peace atop the mountain you once brought to us both
a hundred thousand hours spent watching the quiet flower of your soul
Bloom, wither, and die, to be reborn anew
in the ashes of a dawn to come
in the love of a westerly sunset along the seashore.
Love me, worthy Cosmas. Love all that I am. Amor kung yo.
Because I cannot love myself.
I thought I loved myself when I took you in my arms
And kissed your future and took it in my heart
And learnt, by heart, the anthem that had poisoned your own dream,
the kris that fell into the straits between you and I,
and betrayed our kingdom, our empire, our majesty,
our city of splendor,
that cut into the ties that bound us to one another,
palawan to palawan, brother to brother.
The anthem that said that this,
This is love.
This is desire.
This is frimi chuma blangkas.
This is what it means to be held.
This is what it means to be seen.
This is what it means to be dreamt of.
This is what it means to speak.
This is what it meant when we found no meaning in what we did,
When on that day, that beautiful day, you dared to be the sun,
Knowing full well that no traitor could ever return to face the wrath of the king,
Knowing full well that in eclipse, moonlight would fashion a were-tiger from the stripes that stole across your shadow,
Knowing full well that you would be the artist who painted that star that never blinks in the night sky of my mind.
And yet also knowing full well
that you would be the one
— not I, who ramapaged across city and kingdom and world when I thought you were lost —
you would be the one to return across the ocean, the islands, the hundred thousand rivers,
who would steal your way back into my story and shake me from my stupor,
who would lie once more in my house, on my bed, in my heart,
and never fail in your duty to the promise you made to the one who I love without reserve, the center of my archipelago, my sacred mountain, my universe, my king:
to be as hope is to the most despairing,
as faith is to the most frenzied,
as courage is to the most cowardly,
as night is to the most serene.
This is where we have found ourselves,
the were-tiger, the prisoner, the wanderer, the pilgrim, the dreamer,
five warriors beneath the eyes of the king,
five brothers beneath the heat of the sun,
five fingers outstretched at the prow of the ship of the universe,
five branches of the world-tree, resolute, trembling, reaching through the breezy void of reality to clasp themselves to the soft, gentle heels of eternity,
singku strela seeking only to be spoken of
to be dreamt of
to be seen
to be held.