Penance must have

a metaphor: being awake

while the rest

of the city is asleep.

Right now, my blanket

is sprawled across my legs

my feet indecisive

of whether they would want to

move or stay.

Larger and larger

circles of not belonging

as if we ever really belonged

anywhere.

As if anything, finally

belongs to us–

empires of guilt and regret,

sudden and fleeting tugs

of tenderness.

What belongs to me,

if not this?

This is some sort of an

apology

a placeholder for something

I have yet to name.

Vehicles hurtle by, extinguished somewhere

past the bend of midnight.

After the parting,

one from the other,

there’s the long reclamation–

phantom limb.

From one form to another:

in transit.

A departure or touch

may console.

I wanted to be

the hand that held back

the clock. A measure of time,

a calculation beyond all worth.

Light marks itself on the bed.

It was never warm enough.

How does it feel to be–

a lesson not learned?

The shaking, a trembling

from within.

Is this what you wanted?

Each stolen moment, the heaven

we choose to make.

Ma. Crisley Mae T. Espada is a working law student, reader, writer, and former instructor based in Manila, Philippines. Mae uses she/her/hers pronouns. Her interests include Marxism, ecocriticism, as well as queer and postcolonial studies. She believes the place we deem as "home" plays an essential part in our own making and unmaking as an individual and as a collective. Lately, she's been exploring graphic novels and works in translation. Mae believes that writing, apart from being a form of creative expression, is also a civic engagement, and a call to action. When she grows up she aspires to become a rainforest or a long river running.