Bless > Bless's Quotes

“Sometimes he talks to her like she is a man. It does not matter. He does not touch her like she is one.”
― F.H. Batacan, Smaller and Smaller Circles

“Suspected of ties with the Communist New People’s Army, he disappeared after a lightning rally of farmers and students in Manila in the early 1970s and had not been heard from since. His family believed he had been rounded up by the Metrocom, along with a few other activists and students who had taken part in the rally. He was one of the thousands — fifteen hundred by one count, more than three thousand by another — who fell victim to salvaging. It was a term perverted by the regime’s goons to refer to the extrajudicial killings that had become a dirty open secret of the dictatorship.”
― F.H. Batacan, Smaller and Smaller Circles

“Mainly he just wanted to forget. High school was one very long, very bad dream.”
― F.H. Batacan, Smaller and Smaller Circles

“The Church in this great Catholic country of ours is the last great, unexamined mystery. And I think you know what happens when you don’t let the sunlight into dark places, Father.”
― F.H. Batacan, Smaller and Smaller Circles

“I didn’t like it. I didn’t want any of it. I. Didn’t. Want. It.

How important it was to him to have said this, the one thing he could not say all those terrible, silent years. To have said it so clearly and unequivocally, with the last breath and strength of his life.”
― F.H. Batacan, Smaller and Smaller Circles

“The compassion you seek is neither mine to give nor yours to ask for.”
― F.H. Batacan, Smaller and Smaller Circles

“Funnily enough, I worry for exactly the opposite reasons. I worry that all this secrecy, all this unwillingness to change, to evolve — to listen to reason — is eroding all that we stand for. Endangering everything that we have vowed to protect and defend.”
― F.H. Batacan, Smaller and Smaller Circles

“Samantala habang pilit naming inaagaw ang iyong mga titik, sandali akong nang-umit ng titig. Nagtatanong kung bakit akong manunulat at makatang laging may salita sa dulo ng dila ay laging nasasalisihan ng iyong pagwika. Noon din ang aking pagtangi ay nasa iyo nang pag-iingat.”
― Lean Borlongan, Sansaglit

“ang iyong halaga ay labis-

labis na masusukat
sa mga hindi ko sukat
akalaing kaya kong gawin

kahit
ayaw
ko.”
― Lean Borlongan, Sansaglit

“Mapupuyat ang buwan sa pag-iisip ko sa ‘yo.
Muli’t muli kong
isusulat ang pangalan mo
hanggang makalikha ng tula

sa pagbabakasakaling sa susunod kong paglalakad
tangan ko na’ng iyong palad.”
― Lean Borlongan, Sansaglit

“Hindi kailangang
tignan ka nang matagal
para malamang
nakatingin ka sa kawalan.
Marahil muli kang dinalaw
ng kanyang pangitain
pagkat laging bigo
ang bawat pagtatangkang lumimot”
― Lean Borlongan, Sansaglit

“Nais kong tahakin
ang agwat sa ating pagitan
at tupukin ka
ng alab ng aking pagsinta.
Lumingon ka at iyong mababatid
narito lamang ako sa gilid.”
― Lean Borlongan, Sansaglit

“Bulag ako sa pagtangi
at tinitignan kita nang labis
sa iyong pag-iral.”
― Lean Borlongan, Sansaglit

“Wala akong puso
subalit ang lahat ng puso
ng mga api ay akin
sa paghahangad ng kaayusang
walang pagsasamantala at pag-alipin.
Wala akong puso
pagkat nagnanais makamit
ang kayrami pang puso
kasama
ang pusong nakasilid
sa iyong dibdib
ngunit iba ang nakahamig.”
― Lean Borlongan, Sansaglit

“sinubok kong
sukatin ang salita.
nagsalit lamang ako
sa pagbaybay ng labis
at kulang. huwag ipilit
ang tugma sabi
ng makata. Ang hangganan ko’y
salisaliwang impit
at lumanay. May musika
ang pananahimik ng pintig
na minsang nanahan
sa pantig. May katagang
nasambit na hindi mo
kailan man narinig.”
― Lean Borlongan, Sansaglit

“Minsan
tumataya akong makita ka
ngunit di ka dumarating
at ibinbuwal mo ang mga haligi
ng mga pag-aakala kong
tiyak na tiyak.
...
Iniisip kita’t
hindi minsan.
Dumarating kang kusa’t
hindi minsan.
Ngunit kahit minsan hindi
dumating sa isip kong
magsawa
sa pananatili
at pagbabakasakali.”
― Lean Borlongan, Sansaglit

“Kapag inililigpit na natin
ang ating mga sarili,
maglalakad akong patungo
sa iyong tabi
bago ka tuluyang
agawin ng gabi.
Susumahin ko
sa isang munting pag-uusap
ang bawat
inumit na sulyap.
Dito sa minsang
pagpadpad mo sa akin
alam nating
tila natagpuan ko
ang katubusan ng lahat
at muli akong mangangarap
ng mga tagpong
alam natin.”
― Lean Borlongan, Sansaglit

“What took you so long? you ask
when he arrives, looking at his face,
but your tone has grown so weary,
you are no longer asking a question.”
― Conchitina R. Cruz, elsewhere held and lingered

“we said yes, we were convinced,
never mind what happened since.”
― Conchitina R. Cruz, elsewhere held and lingered

“Say, the body in this bed not its absence in another.”
― Conchitina R. Cruz, elsewhere held and lingered

“Also your breath reaches my lungs
like the flutter of a typhoon-making butterfly.
The improbable third ear. The wrinkled corners of your eyes.
The consequence of leaning up on an elbow for the imprint
of your face on my gloppy retina.”
― Carmen Giménez Smith, Glitch

“For a while I forget
I want to die
only to realize
I’ve been dead all along”
― Andrea V. Tubig, Tonight We Slurp in Color

“Physics says you and I are not creatures—we are individual events entangling with one another, stretching orbits, bending time and space, creating half-loops to prove the existence of forever.

...Then there was light and there was none, and then it flickered and then died, and the cathedrals of the soul and the body went with it. Particles vanish but galaxies expand forever.

...Words are wind but you will remain an asshole forever.

...Fingers crossed, I took a shot and hoped to roam this maze forever.

...Who are you to say what must last forever?”
― Andrea V. Tubig, Tonight We Slurp in Color

“The story had no plans to stay. Just
like most stories, only the good ones remain.”
― Andrea V. Tubig, Tonight We Slurp in Color

“...in my head I wondered if my muse was just another piece of shit who wanted to become a poem. Or if I was just another miserably intoxicated son of a bitch who wanted to become a poet.”
― Andrea V. Tubig, Tonight We Slurp in Color

“Fuck, it’s raining. Maybe something came up. Maybe you didn’t know what to wear. Goddamn, I could have picked you up myself if you tell me where you are. But you are nowhere and everywhere all at once like some fucking deity. I hate you. I should have locked you up in a cage. But you escape every fucking time for some goddamn reason.”
― Andrea V. Tubig, Tonight We Slurp in Color

“Funny how he’d rather look at my poems but not at me.”
― Andrea V. Tubig, Tonight We Slurp in Color

“Maybe it’s because the dirtiest thing about you was your fingernails...Or maybe it’s because you always accused me of being too smart for my own good...Maybe it’s simply because I don’t even wanna learn how to drive.”
― Andrea V. Tubig, Tonight We Slurp in Color

“I was excited to taste Jesus. I ended up weeping when the Body of Christ turned out to be cheap white wafer. Ced cried too, but only because he loved Jesus so much he didn’t mind how he tasted. But afterwards, he held my hand. Promised to find a better God that would feed me blueberry cheesecake, french fries, and fancy champagne. And that’s when Sara entered our lives. Saying Jesus would not want us thinking that. In fact, He’s cooking a holy feast for us when we get to heaven. I said Jesus shouldn’t waste food on people who’re never gonna get to heaven. He better be giving it to the poor instead.”
― Andrea V. Tubig, Tonight We Slurp in Color