Part 3: Blood is Thicker than Distance
ᜆᜒᜆᜓ

I have the same blood type
as my uncle Ramon,
Would you call that
irony?
Inheritance?
Or Coincidence?

I learnt what being a grown up is
from watching him as a child
building, repairing and working endlessly,
as if there is no time between to waste.

I learnt to not glory the reflection of image
but to bare the acceptance of self from him,
and to that
I began to let my hair bloom

After I returned to Australia, my uncle would ask my mumma ‘How is my kid?’

‘okay lang siya,’

Everynow and then a disaster will happen,

That’s just how it is in the Philippines,
when the earthquakes came my aunties house gather cracks,
there was definitely worry but no cause of concern for my direct family,
every now and then I have some friends that will ask if my family was affected,
but my family are more affected by the everyday as I saw it when I lived there,

the weight felt harder than a thirteen-year-old kid knew and had absorbed all the fallacy myths of how lucky I was,
I could not come close to a mirror without hoping I could help later in my life…

My family would always pray before dinner,
I remember plucking the feathers from a dead chicken,
unpaved walls and the missing ceiling …

When I prayed I received responsibility,
the seed of hope planted firmly to hold guilt to think
whether I could consider myself a blessing without saving the lives of miracles.

There’s a sash on me,
in an old photo that my uncle took of me,
when I was finally a winner on stage,
I thought I could really be more than I am now,
to them at least …
And I hate spurring words of dark hurt on my family
that have pure lives of fruitful clutterless overthinking …
I hate smearing the images that you can’t see with each word I press into a laptop when I can’t sleep

The tsunamis came and an aunty held all the cleaning products at once attempting to clean the poverty that had long waves that were born long before we knew we could drown on land and drown she did
To know how strong one amongst our blood could poison themselves as a way to clean all wounds forever

Her own daughter, I call my sister, favorite pinsan, wishing she could marry her way into freedom found her heart in pieces and now never speaks of it

This year I found out that my uncle needed blood and I am too far away to give what would most help, they always saw richness in my skin and deep within the privileges of my life that I’d never be able to see my blood as the same again.