In spite of
The thousand footfalls,
The suicidal jeepneys,
The fastfood stores,
And the countless faces
Of strangers and quaint
Near-acquaintances
That eat me and
This choked-up place
This morning,
The pace of a snail
Is quicker than the time
I spend waiting for you.
Philcoa's throbbing
Throng has trashed my
palpitating pulses,
As if the machines
Of the world have been put
To a long, grinding halt.
And local terrorists are
Crazy kamikazeing like
Plummeting bombs in the sky.
I don't know why. I'm sure as hell
It isn't from this self-imposed boredom,
Or the mushrooming wet beads
On my forehead. I wish to death
It isn't because of you, whose
Notion of departure and arrival
Is the impossibility of getting
From point B to point A
without getting first halfway
To the infinite nodal points,
Amidst polar distances.
Like Zeno's old logic
And his hoax paradox, where
Never-ending stops in-between
Prevent you from reaching
My already fizzed-out
Johnny-panic hugs
And knock-'em-dead kisses.