Remembering July 16

Nothing beats a broken heart.
Perhaps broken glass panes can.
The once disco bar, Batawa

is now our dance studio.
Today, as I am writing this,
is the 16th of July.

The studio has cracked walls.
Perhaps not a remnant of the earthquake
but of people’s soles that beat the floor

so hard it broke the walls.
Sometimes there are just pieces left behind:
broken hollow blocks, crooked iron bars, rotting wood,

shards of glass windows – that needs ordering.
I always like to think
that when there is earthquake

the gods are dancing.
Inside the studio the smell of Batawa still lingers:
sweat, kisses, sex, and curses

of miners, farmers, and all failed lovers.

- Dumay




I am Dumay from the Cordilleras (mountain) region of the Northern Philippines. 
I write poems everyday so I could survive, so I could tell myself that I am living.
I write about the Cordilleras and beyond. I was born and raised here and I have no problem in dying here. The mountains is my source of inspiration. She is my muse.

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