Not just because

Not just because you graduated from a poetry clinic, co-edited a poetry anthology, was asked to write poetry should you write one is what I should tell myself whenever I'm dying to write one. There is so much to be done other than decide which words would appear and disappear at the whim of this ever-shifting form. To read and write sophisticated articulation is a luxury as being able to afford to sit down and think in a cafe amidst the bustling city is a luxury. To be writing this is class conformity, a fulfillment of expectations, an ultimate act of envy with those who could write like this without question, without remorse.

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We called her Aling Paz

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When you're trying to catch up with work

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