Here We Stay, Here We Suffer, It's Okay, Even If I Knew Better
I will never be the place of the abandoned,
I will never set the sights of my grass left dead and dry
When those before me tended it well.
Would you ask me to leave and be merry?
No, not me. Please.
I, thank you, for such consideration.
My gaze looked over the horizon,
The heavy tint of yellow, midday, noon and after
Lemon, mango and orange
The shades of the clouds in my skies
My days
My eyes wandered around and I see myself and others
Waiting for a trickle of basic services
Even if I pay my taxes
I'd even pay for the high inflation,
Because it's the jeepney driver's honest life
His sole livelihood dependent on fuel,
I have to pay him nonetheless for keeping me safe while I travel
Even if it pinches my pocket bad.
How are you, my dearest elites?
You, my unintended lords, are the vilest pigs
And it's the only sin throughout my life that I'm ever proud to commit.
We wait in line for the basic services we deserve,
Because it seems that the taxes we paid,
Is a charity work for the next electoral campaign.
Our taxes that should be returned to us,
Are now overturned to become a battle in tooth and nail.
We wait in a long line for Mayor's philanthropy,
That only cost him a penny from the pockets we pooled,
Resources we pooled.
So Mayor can buy his wife and his mistress those Chanel bags,
Bulgari necklaces and Patek watches
While the rest, called cents by a hundred name, is his another formulated promises
For his next term that he bought by votes
I want my money, I want my social security,
I want my universal healthcare to at least save me after all the work I did
What a dream.
Fuck you, indeed.
For you, elites, to make this a fantasy,
Instead of being the standard quality.
It's hard to leave,
Renounce and spout all the things we already heard a million times
It's better to live in a developed country
Exactly,
If you weren't cut off from your roots,
From the womb that gave you life,
And from the network that raised you.
You will leave an entire village that raised you.
I bet it cost your mental health a million,
You will miss home, I know
You will miss even the most irrelevant things
Anything that refreshes your memory.
So shut up.
With all the courtesy, shut the fuck up spouting nonsense if your grass is greener.
That you found a greener pasture leaving us and now you learn to breed contempt to things you're long familiar with us.
It's hard to leave
But it's harder to stay,
Little by little injected by injustices until we grow numb
And then, live, to live
By day
Another day
We carry on.
Because even if I afforded an escape,
Even if I knew better,
Even if I can recite all the dialectics that there are in this world,
I cannot lose, I cannot afford to lose this drudgery
If my feet sunk heavy, it takes more strength to lift it out of the sinkhole,
Perhaps slowly, even by a pace of snail, it can be called progress
And for the better ones never to see the things we saw ever again.
Ah, pathetic.
As it was, when one tries to self-justify.
Maybe tomorrow never came for us,
But at least tomorrow shouldn't have to be the same.
Like those before me,
Like those are with me,
And perhaps those that would soon come after you.
Indeed, here, we stay.
Even if I knew better.
