dave cortel

they say the mornings here arrive soft—

    sunlight slipping through capiz shells,     tricycles coughing awake,     the smell of rice already forgiving the night.

but lately,

    even the light feels negotiated.

like it had to pass checkpoints     before touching our skin.

we wake anyway.

    we always do.

there is a kind of stubbornness     in being pinoy—

a quiet, inherited insistence         on continuing.

the news hums in the background

    like a faulty electric fan,

spinning stories that feel rehearsed,     promises folded into press releases,     truth edited for comfort.

and still—

    someone is boiling coffee in a dented pot,     someone is laughing too loudly at nothing,     someone is sweeping dust         that will return tomorrow.

we have mastered this:

    living beside absurdity

without naming it too often,     because to name it         is to admit how much it costs         to stay.

there are days the country feels

    like a house with too many cracks,

where the rain seeps in     no matter how many basins         we place underneath.

and yet we decorate it.

    we hang parols in december,     we paint the walls before fiestas,     we invite guests

as if nothing is collapsing quietly         behind the kitchen door.

maybe this is our tragedy—

    or our brilliance—

this ability to endure     without spectacle.

to carry disappointment

    like it’s just another bag         from the market.

but listen—

    beneath the noise,     beneath the careful silences,

there is a pulse.

    not loud.     not heroic.

just steady.

and sometimes,

    that is enough

to keep a nation breathing         through its own contradictions.