growing up where the earth shakes and water pours too eagerly, you'd understand how fickle life truly is. 

i was young when i watched bodies being pulled under concrete rubble. soon enough i remember witnessing groups of adults begins to pick up where everything left them. building new systems both for safety and convenience. following the things mother nature taught them in the hardest way. i was young but human enough to understand the cycle of cataclysm. we were building life upon a path of destruction and it was the awareness of it all that eventually prepare us, for both for death and reinvention. 

oh well, it's not that bad all year round. there are moments of joy, memories where simpler things resides. we weren't well off, but we knew how to invest in indulgences that builds. if you ask me to show me my root, i'll take you to my daddy's reading room. a CRT computer in one corner, piles and piles of encyclopedia in the other. i'd get lost in both world, balancing childhood over online games and precambrian bloom. i'll take you to my living room where me and my brothers would bicker over monopoly, aware that we're one word away from an hour of scolding. i'll take you to my front porch where conversations drags until the sun sets. i'll let you in and have you observe every gentle touch, every soft giggles mingled with the sound of cicadas, denoting that summer has come for us to relish.

i came to realize that you have every liberty to choose what you're calling home. you decide the tone to the hymn you're dedicating to your hometown. so i decide to be fair, and write equally for both parts. i write about the yellowish sun rays that pierce through the leaves, creating dappled lights that disturbs whoever dares to sleep so noon. i write about the unpredictable rains and the anxious watch over the river water level. the chirping birds, but also the occasional sighting of snakes and lizards. the historical weight of every late night gamelan orchestra. the mythical shifts in the air during full moon. the muffled boisterousness of monthly festivals. i decide to capitalize the beauty, and accept the horror faux-wisely. 

faux-wisely cause i'm nowhere near wise. you'd think my hyper-awareness when it comes to cosmic affairs would soften my heart and nurture my brain. from the outside, it might seem like that but trust me when i say it's all performative-survival. to live up names and brings food to my adult tables. i have spent my entire live learning about independence and detachment, but i turn to be the most obsessive force to be reckoned with. and when i speak of my hometown glory, honesty became the wall that separates you from that version. i'd lie and tell you it's a sanctuary. but if i choose to honor my integrity, i'd say that a part of me is crucified to this land. that me and this earth is one. i can long to spread my wings and see the better part of the world, swearing i'll never return to that political chaos. but deep down i know that buttercups, once removed from their pots, will soon wither. all my life, i've been striving for nonchalance, but every gunshots aimed to this city is a hole on my limbs. can you see me gasping for air? open fractures underneath the dried blood. can you see me paralyzed?

knowing this, you'd agree that i had all rights to be whiny about how things turns out. they're selling the lands! they're building new castles! they're driving the magic away! the rumor touched my doorstep before the new landlord does. you'd agree that i had all rights to be petty. to snicker on their hair, and mutter comments on their sickening cologne. to rip something that has coexisted for twenty five years draws blood. you don't blame inevitable attachment, you don't blame something so humane. you cut the sapodilla tree and with it you bring down a spectacle of childhood, only relevant to two girls holding hands in their newly bought soccer jersey. you're pouring concretes over the soil where dozens of time capsules filled with dislodged buttons and letters written in bad cursives are buried. over the mahogany table, it's justified. but over my crushed heart, you deserve crushing. 

so i'm leaving the town once more. one day, this land will be mine to rule, or so my mother said. i turn her down, clutching my cloak and slipping the dagger in my purse. i just can't do it, mother. i just can't bear to witness it being so outgrown with ugly babies and loud spouses who fights over TV channels yet forgives disloyalty. it has been two decades of lush ivies and annual butterfly migrations. to watch you drive them away would destroy me. i'm leaving the not so charming shamrock walls knowing that by doing so, i will have nowhere to return. i curse the wagon that took me away then kiss the horses that saves me of a life in containment. what are you supposed to do anyway? when staying burns, but leaving drowns? it's a journey of paying the psychic cost of letting go, a heavy steps taken to protect dignity. it's the right thing to be done, or so my mother said. 

you became the final chorus of my song. one that i cannot sing in a bar without people questioning about the pathology of it all. each of the melody is an honest prayer for your downfall. it's a desperate hope for haunted nights and empty eyes staring back at you from the window. it's disturbing. psychopathic, if you will. but it's what you get from ripping home aparts. you know grudge doesn't die grandly. it decompose into hallucinogenic fungus, invading every corner of your newly built house. it's poison, crafted by a displaced rebel. so listen to me, sweetness. can you hear the earth rumble?