Julia Isabel Andres – Elizabeth Seton School

Rusted Heart of Gold

Julia Isabel Andres — Thu, 20 Apr 2023 00:39:37 +0000

Rhoda Athena Manalili

Author

Caitlin Castillo

Graphic Artist

Rusted Heart of Gold

Have you heard, have you heard? Of the gossip of late—

Of the knight who once walked these streets, merry in his work as he guarded the gates?

With his smile so bright and his laughter the sweetest sound,

How it would echo throughout the city, spreading joy to everyone around?

��

Do you remember, I wonder, all those years ago,

When his eyes were so bright, twinkling with hope?

How he held pride in himself for how he fought for what was right,

And with his benevolent nature, worked for a better tomorrow in sight.

��

But alas, childhood fantasies were never known to last.

Had no one warned him of how his heroic books lied to him in the past?

I remember so well, when his whole world fell apart.

The golden rules of karma he’d learned, but they had no use for his broken heart.

��

His madness consumed him, they say, when he lost all that he had,

The glimpse of reality hit him hard as the facade of his privileges collapsed.

With the true atrocities of man, the pious young boy was faced with what was true,

It showed him no mercy and left him no honor as the tragedy crumbled his whole worldview.

��

He was never the same after that, not in the slightest.

Gone was his knightly chivalry, replaced with a stone heart at its mightiest.

Blinded he is now by a broken illusion of the justice he once lived for,

No longer will his once noble blade ever again be as pure as it was before.

��

How could he still believe that all he’s doing is justified,

After all that have lost their lives to his wrath, in meaningless fights, they’ve died?

He thinks that what he’s doing is no worse than what he’s seen other people have done,

But is that truly an excuse for his merciless fits, his heartlessness after the battles he’s won?

��

Where has the kind young knight gone, he who helped people with a smile?

Has he truly spiraled into insanity, his good heart twisted until it died in denial?

This world has changed him for the worse, I fear, on this new path he’s chosen to pursue.

𝐀𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐥𝐥, 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐞𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐝𝐢𝐞 𝐚𝐬 𝐚 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐨, 𝐨𝐫 𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐞𝐧𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐭𝐨 𝐰𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐯𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮.

��𱹱�Ծ�ō

Julia Isabel Andres — Thu, 20 Apr 2023 00:38:00 +0000

Princess Donah Paragamac

Author

Zoie De Guzman

Graphic Artist

��𱹱�Ծ�ō

Contempt and derision waltz into the room

unannounced, uninvited.

Gnarly skin on bones lifts its head up,

revealing that of a youth, unaware of the fate that awaits him.

Confusion and revere cloud the child’s vision��

with how slick and agile the mood has shifted.

Before the stinging sourness seeps through his skin,��

killing his ardor and expectation.

��

Rusting shackles dig into calloused skin,

the click of the lock as it’s unlatched –

once was a sound of a calming melody��

now akin to a strident clamor.

��

Each intake of breath, he’d released with such rigor

now aware of the fate that befalls upon his inutile existence.

“��𱹱�Ծ�ō,” he uttered, a silent prayer going unheard.

��

The rough grab of a cheek is what awakened his mind,

reminiscent of how he was molded into convenient fruition.

Not quite as pleasant as the firsthand pride he wore like skin��

upon being forged to completion, to perfection,��

from outside to within.

��

–��

��

With faces of varying youths calming down from their euphoric high.

And as the moon falls into a lull,

peaceful illusion shatters.

��

Despite the late night hours,

citizens arrive from near and far.

A collective wish and urge to partake,

With attentive gazes, the cause of which one can’t abandon nor forsake.

��

Adults who’ve drowned themselves in maudlin and booze

find themselves scurrying for front-row seats,��

unhidden excitement of which ooze.

Yet, it was his presence that had live chatter reduced to that of silent, tantalizing stares.

��

It was that of familiar pinpricks of grass and the stench of midnight air,

of cedar wood floors pattering and creaking upon contact with dainty feet,

that had halted the child’s steps.

��

“��𱹱�Ծ�ō,” he uttered, like a curse falling on deaf ears.

��

There, stood parallel to the child,

another face, a mirror image of his

causes his throat to clog up with bile.

��

Epiphany hits, strikes, and leaves him,

bruised and battered.

Analogous to such sensation

of water being bashed against such fragile skull.

The receding pain lingers, even without concrete impact

with lungs expanding

too wide to find words.

��

With a nudge forward,

with his throat sticky,

with the sensation akin to cobwebs swallowed,

the whole world comes crashing down.

��

Youthful eyes that knew all too well

stared at figure that stood

who clutches the blade, strangling it between his palms.

So sharp, with things it could puncture endless.

With ornate detail

Of rust from the velvet ichor that bled��

from those beforehand, unfortunate to perish.

��

His once naive gaze flickered to the crowd

source of such strong hatred he longed to uncover.

The crowd cheers and woos,

prior festivities long forgotten,

too kept up with being dragged along

with the cries and pleas to behead the body of which the youth belongs.

��

With one step, the next follows,

before he knelt on both knees.

Both eyes, the same, differ in emotion

bore straight to each other.

The youth that knelt looked up

“��𱹱�Ծ�ō,” he uttered,��

laid bare, vulnerable, yet lenient.

A gear falls into place, clicks, and the executioner sighs.

��

Two silent figures communicate through their eyes

The one who stood had a smile he passed on

The one who knelt with his pair of eyes left to widen

a prayer, a longing, granted��

Leaving the one who knelt feeling as though he’s won.

��

A final nod strikes the chord,

Assurance laying at its wake

The one who stood, the executioner, smiles

As if uttering;

“After the ground eats up your flesh

rest easy and be guaranteed,

a life of yours to own is what will follow.”

��

As the pricks of daylight emerge from the horizon,

echoing and reverberating was that of the sound of the blade, unsheathed.

echoing and reverberating was that of ten tentative footsteps,

echoing and reverberating was that of steel coming contact to his nape

echoing and reverberating was that of a head falling, one belonging to that of the child who grinned

leaving those who stared silenced, left to gape.

��

–��

��

After such cruel execution,

when that of the mob has been left with none,

the one who stood and held the blade,

clutched the severed flesh close,

holding onto that of what once was him.

��

“��𱹱�Ծ�ō,” he finally uttered.

His voice, with power capable of calming that of a ferociously beating heart

The youth that laid couldn’t help but gaze

as if he, the one who took his life,

who stood and held him,

was a being itself loved by light..

��

He looks with his cloudy eyes, acknowledgment brimming

Thinking to himself how such ending is fitting

��

“And to die in your hands is a sight to behold

I regret not that of rebirth with the life you have taken,” he utters

“��𱹱�Ծ�ō,” he replies, like a command saying,

“come back, return, for you shall become one again.”

Né De Nouveau

Julia Isabel Andres — Thu, 20 Apr 2023 00:33:27 +0000

Jayvielynn Veronica Santos

Author

Grazell Francia

Graphic Artist

Né De Nouveau

His loyalty turned to a bitter taste of resentment so cruel,

He birthed those of springs and summers of plenty antinovels,

The fall full of demise and hatred that wouldn’t just end

This will mark the start of the end, soon it will be uncoffined

��

From the mist of the clouds, the mirror breaks into a light haze,

You turn and see blood running down like tears—it’s near,

As it threw its poison, there’s no escape, glaring at your heart ablaze,

You turn to witness it’s not flesh, it’s built of miasma and fear

��

She’s familiar, so pure, a taste lost in the crowd of bland spices,

He’s the sweet song of lullabies turned into a hum of cries

It hithers you back into a world that, as wonderful as it guises,

Broke the substratum underneath to watch as all of you dies

Every nerve in your body writhing in agony so familiar,

How alluring—the epitome of afterlife radiance—such bliss,

Weakened and wounded, is this what the shadow reaper saw from afar?

Bodies now reuniting with the ground though it feels amiss,

One more blink and you will tear the last drop of water in your body

Restraining yourself from further despair as it turns you to ashes

Last laughs from those who watched your demise with such rhapsody

Bewildered by how they echoed a taste for your death, filling their fetishes

��

There was pure silence, a very first in all times you lost tranquility

Did all this end because of a fall that lasted for a minute?

Losing all light and ember of hopes resulting to views so violently,

Deciding to reside below the dirt and into flames defied my finite

��

All so sudden. A shimmer of astras with open arms form a pathway,

An odyssey came surrounding my corpse as it rises, yearning for a rebirth

��“Anagénnisi ángelé mou,” rebirth my angel they said, wishing for my rise that day,

Reopening these eyes as if it’s been years before I tasted this airth

��

Such luminescence from inside me flowed out from skies to buds of lotus,

Chortles turning to a visible shock; never knew I would come back

This was the time I held my head high, avenging my unplanned hiatus

Even rift walkers were amazed at how I handled this sense of black

��

As a new era came blooming I would mark my words and continue thriving,

Gold collides with ashes but ashes would never be my demise

Last paragraphs would present our stories—not our ending,

Our happily ever after started after we peak and arise.

Magmuli, Magpakailanman

Julia Isabel Andres — Thu, 20 Apr 2023 00:33:09 +0000

Carmelle Francesca Plabasan

Author

Grazell Francia

Graphic Artist

Magmuli, Magpakailanman

𝟏 – 𝟏𝟎.

Saan nga ba nag-umpisa ang pagkabihag ng aking diwa

Nakakadena sa kadiliman, nais lamang ang pag-𝒂𝒍𝒑𝒂𝒔?

Nakaapak ang mga paa sa lawa ng mga luha, dala-dala��

Ang tapyas ng pag-asang hindi na ma𝒃𝒂𝒏𝒂𝒂𝒈��

Ang 𝒌𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒂𝒘 na dati’y kaibigan ay kasabwat na ng kalungkutan

Tatlong boses ang umalingawngaw sa bilangguan

Ang unang boses ay dumating nang gabi’y madilim:

Ang buong 𝒅𝒂𝒊𝒈𝒅𝒊𝒈 ay tahimik at payapa, maliban sa akin

“Tumalima ka na sa iyong tadhana, gaya ng kalyeng nagiging��

𝑬𝒔𝒌𝒊𝒏𝒊𝒕𝒂 upang umagpang sa gusaling pumapaligid dito.”

Ipina𝒈𝒖𝒏𝒊𝒕𝒂 ng pangalawang boses ang mga araw na nagdaan na,��

Ang mga araw na kasiyahan ang namayani minsan

“Mananatiling hiling ang 𝒉𝒖𝒎𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒈 mo sa nakalipas:��

Kahit ipagdikit muli ang mga piraso, hindi na maibabalik sa dati.”

𝑰𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒂𝒓𝒂𝒌 ng huling boses ang pinakamalalim na galos,��

Ang kinabukasang sinunggab ng pag-aalinlangan at pangamba

“Mga labi na lamang ang natira sa 𝒍𝒖𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈 mo–nakapiit sa��

Walang katapusang gabi at ni hindi alam kung siya’y makalalaya.”

Nagtamo lamang ng bagong peklat sa 𝒎𝒂𝒔𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒎𝒖𝒐𝒕 na daan;

Kaya bang ipaglaban ang pangarap na inaasam, puspos man ng pighati?

𝟏𝟏 – 𝟐𝟎.

Pananabik sa mga 𝒏𝒂𝒕𝒂𝒕𝒂𝒏𝒈𝒊𝒏𝒈 alaala, pagnanais na durugin ang��

Kadena, mga kamay na nangangatog sa pagkabalisa;

Dinig ba ang aking maingay na 𝒏𝒈𝒖𝒚𝒏𝒈𝒐𝒚? Dama ba ang aking pagluluksa?��

Ang mga patak ng luhang dala ng walang-tigil na hinagpis

Sa paglipas ng matagal na 𝒐𝒓𝒂𝒔, walang katapusang paghihintay,

Pumatak lamang ang luhang kilala lang ang kadilimang sanhi nito

Wala pang makalalapat sa lubak na iniwan ng panahon at pagkakataon,��

Mahulog man mula sa langit ang toniko ng 𝒑𝒂𝒈𝒉𝒊𝒍𝒐𝒎

𝑹𝒖𝒎𝒂𝒓𝒂𝒈𝒂𝒔𝒂 ang malalim at masakit na lungkot sa aking ugat–

Nangangapit lamang ako sa kaunting kaginhawaan

Ngunit nakabakas sa mga tala na kasing 𝒔𝒊𝒅𝒉𝒊 ng kadiliman ang unang silip��

Ng liwanag, ang unang ani matapos ang mahabang tagtuyot

Sawi man sa kulungan, ngayo’y nakatayo na sa harap ng��

Isang 𝒕𝒂𝒍𝒂𝒎𝒑𝒂𝒔, kaya ko bang lumukso sa kabilang dako?

Sa kasagsagan ng mga damdamin–takot, hapis, kabiguan, panglaw–

Sa mga alon, may isang nag-𝒖𝒅𝒚𝒐𝒌��

Ang bukal na pinagmulan ng lahat, na siya mismong ugat ng hilahil,��

Ngunit daluyan din ng lakas ng loob: ang 𝒘𝒂𝒈𝒂𝒔 na pag-ibig

Isang tulay ang nabuo sa wasak na alaalang malapit sa puso at��

Panaghoy para makarating sa kinabukasang sana’y 𝒚𝒖𝒎𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒏𝒈

𝟐𝟏 – 𝟐𝟓.

Pinag-isa at hinilom ng walang pasubaling pag-ibig

Ang gutay-gutay kong mga piraso sa kasalukuyan

Patuloy na umaalab ang dalawang sulo ng pag-asa,��

Hanggang makalaya ang sugatang ibon at muling makalipad

Nakaraan, kasalukuyan, kinabukasan–ang tatlong mag-uukit��

Ng durungawan sa madilim na silid na kinaroroonan

Sa ngayon, sapat nang makita ang bukang-liwayway��

Sa mga bintana at sumulong sa kabila ng mga boses ng pighati

Balang-araw, muli akong makangingiti at makaaalpas sa mga tanikala ko;��

At ako’y isisilang na 𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐦𝐮𝐥𝐢, 𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐩𝐚𝐤𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐦𝐚𝐧