 Invocation to daughters. Daughters, our world is beyond unkind. We know it is downright brutal. We have no haven. We have only known words for our bodies, such as commerce, coercion. A passive language strips us of our kick and grit and fight in our bloodlines. A vulgar language attributes our survival to others' benevolence, belying our scars through cruel sources. A language of consumption frames our humanity as thighs, breasts, and eggs. A language of proprietorship brands and cages us. We are una herida abierta, isang bukas nang sugat. We are una lengua quebrada, isang putol nadila. We are pirazo, parcela, objetos para comercio. Daughters, the father's monitor our developing curves, control our bodies, redact consent from our tongues. They deem us deficient, dirty. Daughters, our kind is now endangered. We are dying young and desperate and no words were ever ours. Daughters, let us create a language so that we know ourselves, so that we may sing and tell and pray. Invocation to Daughters, three. We are dying in alarming ways and at alarming frequency. No one bothers to count. We are isolated incidents. We're a nuisance. We are festering but easy to ignore. We ring our insides and we bite our tongues just as we have been instructed. We have stopped eating now and we are cutting. Albeit not too deep. We cry in dark and quiet spaces. No one witnesses anything of consequence. We are too messed up to matter. We are alone, so many of us apart and shushed. We dissolve into walls. Prayer on Good Friday. In rising, we will restore your life. In judicial review, in hard luck, in domestic work, in detention cell, in penitence, in procession, in sign and craft, in the street, in death row traffic, in gift and token, in prison wage, in innocence, in hope, in dropping out, in broken marriage, in single motherhood, in attempted rape, in housekeeping, in social emergency, in mercy plea, in pending execution, in legal appeal, in global outcry, in rejected application, in abandonment, in dying, we will destroy your death. In dying, we will destroy your death. We cannot do and we do not know. We cannot promise we are told in penning letters of clemency. We hold the banner of the innocent. We exhaust all words. We gather in the streets. We are calling. We trust and we are broken, hoping we will be found. In conviction, in flight, in Psalms of justice, we wait and we wait. We learn we cannot trust, not even our own kin. In our hunger, we are sacrificed. We die for your sins. We rise again. We die for your sins. We rise again. We are objects of your choosing. We proceed in splendor, glamour. We are produced by you, fashioned by you. We act but only with your permission. We spread your goodwill. We relish prestige. We thank you. We thank you and we thank our God. We shine with opportunity. We stand tall. We poise our bodies for your liking. We smile because it pleases you. We are budding, fragrant. We are fragile. We suck in our bellies and our cheekbones. We are breathless, hungry and innocent. We always say yes as we must say yes. We always say yes as we must say yes. We place ourselves in your catalogs. We are good girls. We are pure in the flesh. We pray to find companions like you. We are God fearing, blessed are the meek. We practice your tongues. We hold our own. We speak only when spoken to, softly. We do as we're asked. We do as we're told. We promise to keep pristine your domain. We uphold the sanctity of the sacrament. We work hard. We save what we earn. We will always place our family first. We sacrifice. We suffer in Jesus's name. We lay down our bodies as we must. We lay down our bodies as we must. We eat and sleep only when we're allowed. We suffocate. We do not know mercy. We avoid eye contact. We bow our heads. We pray to the Lord. We shall not want. We are unseen, so many of us hoping. We examine our scars, all we've absorbed. We are burned. We corroborate wounds. We dress our wounds. We seek legal aid. We deliver our testimony as we must. We help. We nurse. We shelter each other. We seek comfort only in ourselves. We are poor and simple in your eyes. We commit everything to memory. We commit everything to memory. Every lie and categorical denial, every non-consensual push and thrust, every parcel of human traffic, every plea deal in violation, every curse, every inventory bruise, every one of us entrapped, itemized. Every damn day, we fight and we pray. Blessed are we, poor and persecuted. Blessed are we, exiled, exhausted. You who profit from our suffering. You who fatten yourselves on our hunger. Eye for eye and fracture for fracture. It is written by our steadying hands. It is written by my steadying hand. This sorrowful song, this whispering solve. This narrative of knuckled punches. This raised fist, it is my own. I stand and I speak though my bravery wavers. And I stand tall though you tower above me. And I speak and I grit my teeth and I breathe and I close my fists and I hear my voice. This sooth saying, this hollering we. This lyric making me. Now a dazzling we. How we howl, we witness, we testify. We stand firm and you cannot break us. We are raw nerves and we are fire. We rise and in writing, we restore our lives. Read one more piece from here. There's some Tagalog in here that every time I try to read it out loud, I keep messing it up. So I'm gonna have to kind of chill on the Tagalog for now. This is Wisdom's Rebuke. And it begins with a passage from Proverbs chapter one, verse 20 to 21. I was raised Catholic. Out in the open, wisdom calls aloud. She raises her voice in the public square. On the top of the wall, she cries out. At the gate, she makes her speech. I am not the polite little girl, take two. I am not the polite little colored girl you are looking for. You did not fashion me in your image. It is not my ambition that you glance my way to acknowledge my foreign face, to learn my barbaric tongue, to cherish my diminutive body. You are not my gravity. I am not your ethnic spectacle. I am not your cultural poverty. You don't get to frame me. I do not ask for your permission to speak. I do not ask for you to hear me. I write whether or not you invite my words. I will not be housebroken, adorned for my tameness. I'm not afraid of you. You don't get to catalog me. You don't get to warehouse me. You don't get to rescue me. You don't get to touch me. You don't get to explain me. You are not the standard by which I judge my own worth. You don't get to draw my boundaries. Fuck your tender fences and applause. I do not ask for your acceptance. I am not your child. I am not your pet. I am not your object lesson. I don't need your absolution. This is some, wow, oh my God. Okay, so this might be like the first time I've read this much poetry from this book. Wow, oh my God. Yo, okay. I'm gonna try to, thank you. I'm gonna try to read a couple of maybe nicer, kinda sweeter pieces. Okay. No, oh my gosh. To pray to the goddess of lost things. Apparently Filipinos do have a goddess of lost things. I don't know exactly what she does, but a friend on Facebook because all my poetry is coming from social media these days had said, you know, if there is such a thing, what do you write to the goddess of lost things? And so here's this poem. Help me to find my innocence. I may have dropped it on the bus last week when I also lost my cell phone and a notebook full of poems. I keep dropping my things. I forget where I've left things. People keep taking my shit without asking. Maybe I've forgotten what I've lend out. I can't hold it together. I'm trying, I'm trying so help me to find my pride. Some punk ass bitch stole it from me, I'm sure when I was at the mall. I just turned around for a second. I was looking for my mother. I was updating my Facebook. I was blinded by something that must have been important. I was shoulder bumped by strangers. I was robbed. I searched all my pockets, my skinny jeans and piles of laundry, my shopping bags, my crumpled receipts, and it just wasn't anywhere. Where is my dignity? Where is my credit card? Where are my self-esteem? My perfect size to body? My medication? Where did I leave those? Where is my lipstick? My car keys? Where is my one true love? My very own happily ever after. Where's my voice? Every time I speak, some man, any man always interrupts and every time I speak, louder, he shouts. He claims he knows far better than I, what I need, what's good for me. Where is my fire to burn the filth from his tongue? He wants me to fit in his pants pocket. Where are my knives? Where is my backbone? Where is my wishbone? Help me find my voice because some white woman keeps yapping at me as if I should drop everything. As if I must listen. She says she speaks on my behalf. Do not believe her. She says she's my friend and my sister. She's a dirty liar. Where are my manners? I seem to have lost those too. My mother taught me to say please, please help me find her. Where is my compass? This GPS keeps leading me away from all that is clear and cool. Help me to locate my center. Where are my manners? My mother taught me also to remember to breathe and always, always give thanks. One last poem. Psalm from Mary Jane Veloso. Praise the monstrous body. Too enormous to describe. When the tongue is taken, how may the mouth even try? Praise the bitch-slapped face, the hemorrhaged eyes, the cluster, the clot within our blood. We run. We run, and we always look back. Praise the trafficked body, the one that is excised. On smartphones with hashtags, we lament the phantom part. Praise the foreign object rushing to the heart. That is you, the help, the heroine. We pump our fists for you. Isang, bug-suck. Praise the ever-present lens. The firing squad shoots every curse and plea. Your breath is a miracle, a lifeline, a headline. The old you is dead. Praise for her soul. We offer to her our last lacrimosa. Praise the new you, the chrysalis, the secluded saint. Praise you. May you emerge, graced, and gospeled, unjudged, unfallen, and the color of sky. Thank you very much. Thank you.