Teach us to outgrow our madness

1.

[ Good luck getting that stain out. Look! It’s spreading — what’s that pattern it’s making? Is that a tree or a house fire? A bruise blooming on flesh? A dry rattling lung? I can see someone — what is he doing — pleading? Reasoning? Oh . . . he might as well wish he was . . . ]

You wake up. Outside your bedroom window, you see bruise-colored dusk skies sinking over the city. You have fallen asleep waiting for yourself to return. Earlier, you have seen yourself dissociate from your body, walk out of your room, and leave your house, passing by the looming mango tree as you exit the rusty gate. You bid it a quiet farewell.

You are able to walk the almost empty streets, save for some faceless men in mottled green and brown. It’s been thirty-three days since the government announced the lockdown — oh, a month already passed, you just realize — as if counting helps, as if it matters? You try to snap yourself back in the present, remind yourself of your simple mission to restock on food and supplies. You continue to go unnoticed, thankfully. A residue of your maroon days in the cell, you’ve learned to be incognito. You gravely remind yourself:

Disagreements between people like me and the faceless men sometimes appear at the smallest hiccups, erupting into senseless barbarism. I’ve seen their brutalities far too many times in familiar places; places I consider part of my home. . . I have tasted the violence that these men can mete out.

It’s been years, but the pain has already seeped deeply into the fissures of your flesh and bones. Time has calcified the black fear, the dark dirt in your soul, staining like blood on teeth. You wonder if there is a way out.

In the meantime, you find your way back into your body.

2.

Ang pangkukulam ay parang pagdarasal. Tulad ng pagtitirik ng kandila sa altar. Ng pag-aalay ng bulaklak sa dambana. Ng pagdalaw sa may sakit sa pagamutan. Ng pagpapakain sa nagugutom. Ng pakikipagniig sa kalikasan. Lahat ng iyan ay iba’t ibang anyo ng pagdarasal. May tatlong bahagi ang pagdarasal: Una, ang pagpapanaog sa kamalayan upang pakinggan ang budhi at upang bigyang-tinig ang puso. Ikalawa, ang pagsisiwalat ng tulong sa nakapangyayari o sa Panginoon. . . Ang sinumang-tao na maaaring magdasal, kung gayon, ay maaari ring mangkulam. Katulad ko. Katulad mo. 

— Tony Perez, “Mga Panibagong Kulam” (1996)

You construct a grid to house your prayers. In each cell, you plant a lit green candle one by one. Then, three knocks for the wood spirits: I acknowledge you, here is my offering, I humbly seek your guidance. Nature regards each boon for a beloved.

Laying all two hundred seventy candles, seeing the remaining dancing flames spark a memory — or was it a dream? Drenched in terror, you were desperately looking for a knife, but found a box of matches instead. You contemplated whether burning the entire house down could also offer you escape.

Can one outgrow their madness? By way of an answer, you feel it: a pale hand entering your chest, lightly placing its palm on your heart, as if to steady it.

You continue to pray.

3.

Today, an old wound has reopened. Four months ago, you cut your finger with a dull knife as you sliced through a stone-hard bread, carelessness stemming from your learned dexterity. However, instead of crimson blood, verdant foliage sprouts.

Slowly, you are surrounded by green — the green
that spread through your veins,
that filled your bruises and ventricles,
that purified the spaces between your breaths —
flowing out of your body; a forest finally emerges.

With a silent prayer, you dance barefoot. All at once: you feel the gentle rain, the moist soil, the warm sun, the cool breeze. The earth an altar, your body the conduit. You whisper blessings to the wind until there is no more green.

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* With passages inspired by and lifted from “Between the Corpse and the Tree” (2020) by Neo Maestro and “Each flower began in the palm of hand” (2025) by Lani Maestro and Neo Maestro.
* Quote in section 2 from “Mga Panibagong Kulam” by Tony Perez, edited by Cecille Legazpi. Published by Anvil Publishing, Inc., 1996. Copyright Nelson I. Miranda.

— Lk Rigor

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