open our eyes
Taguig, Philippines
2019, Junior, Poetry & Spoken Word
we close our eyes see the glistening diamonds
imprinted in the massive ocean the celeste hue
to such prussian blue seizes the horizon from its ebbs
and flow
the wave’s own hands cup
their midnight slick hair up to the tall onyx boulders
looming over
its trinkets everywhere shells
and pebbles to bottles and scraps
of plastic—then to return
to its own sync with the howls
of the currents free and careless
washing away all our trash and the clutter
of footprints paved in the sand we think it is
perpetual the choppy wallowing sea
thrashing each other the egg shell white rising
only to fling around clawing at the surface—everlasting
when we open our eyes bottom of the ocean are rows
and columns
of tombstones even the corals
no more the exquisite turquoise
no longer the roots of the sea but a delicate
souvenir
a dull gray bleached with the translucent waste rapidly draining life
much like how mold ate the apple
sea now a raspy cry suffocate me
drowning in the piles and piles
of trash
yet it fights through with the raspy coughs
to wash away our footprints our presence once more
only to realize its permanent mark
no longer erasable
throw a lifeline through voices and marches
open our eyes
Reflection
Reflection
Living in the Philippines, an island surrounded by few of the world’s cleanest and prettiest oceans in the world, I often took such bodies of water for granted. I’ve never seen the ocean as one endangered, but more as something so massive that it was indestructible. I realized that I’ve only been exposed to a very limited side. Most of us have only seen cleanest beaches for tourist purposes, have only seen the most vibrant corals, have only seen the clearest waters. We tell ourselves we are intellectuals, yet we can’t even manage to see that our world is dying. We know our world isn’t ideal, yet we are acting like it is. This poem is about how we have yet to open our eyes to the world that truly is, not the paradise we see on the Internet.