Making Peace

Recently I realized that my coming out had another dimension to it: it made me more at peace with my body. Dati kasi there's always this thought at the back of my mind that my body would rat out my "secret." Not that I'm pretending. You know, mahirap lang talaga kapag inuunahan ka ng ibang tao, eh sa sarili mo hindi pa naman malinaw. Yun siguro yung in-the-closet feeling for me, mahirap, kasi chances are, it might trigger your defense mechanism just for the sake of proving others wrong. Unnecessarily. When that's the last thing you need to be able to accept whatever it is you need to accept.

Digression: Counting out my family and a handful of people remaining, I think I can say I'm almost done coming out. From hereon I'll strive to be plainly open about it to the people I meet, with proper judgment of course. Being gay is just a yes-or-no question after all. Being you, on the other hand, isn't that where the real hard work is?

So I'm thankful for having outgrown that kind of worrying. I feel freer and lighter (Modess?!?) sort of. Although sedentary pa rin ang lifestyle ko for the most part, I'm trying out activities I really enjoy. Then, you realize na teka may katawan nga pala ako noh, sumasakit yan at napapagod, maraming hindi kayang gawin. Yet, it grounds you at the same time, a lesson I'm learning to appreciate more and more.

I think, those thoughts I've been mulling over are what motivated me to fish this out of my subconscious, hehe.


***

Errata


Sure I wanted the body
exacted toll for its infirmities

I could list down to make up
the whole, the sum even

of missing parts, this is merism:
I say breath, limbs, and heart,

those beat against the head
-ing to the farthest I've been at sea,

again I say breath, limbs, and heart
for that much has been, much

lost from you or relieved
where does being whole stop

but at infinite. So a body begins and begins
its natural closing on its tiny self

taking in hook, line and sinker,
these beyond the body allowed in

safe passage, free to take course within.
So I counted down to eight planets,

measured the age of light, made this shore
an ancient crater of the earth. All along

the porous body still nothing finally
to be faulted for, too difficult there

small fissures were crusting
all over its exterior, deposits

I began calling spirit, essence, soul—
small currents coursing a geography:

stretch of mountains to trenches,
channels of veins, nose hair and cartilage,

skin, pigments, watercolor, words, fence,
wind, watermilll, song, all of the same finite

element I pick up, I break, I could mend
only incompletely, and I do those again

all over to this I possess, center, flat,
maybe on turtles all the way down.



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