Agon

hindi—ngiti

“Anak ka talaga ng Tatay mo” | Mary Joyce A. Bernal

“As a child, I was fascinated by the absence of the upper portion of his finger. I would ask him a lot of questions: How did the accident happen? What was the machine that chopped it off like? Can he fold it? Will a nail still grow? I can only remember the laugh that would escape his lips preceding the answers I have long forgotten. Other people have not been as fascinated as I was. There were some occasions when people would flinch at the sight of what remained of his right index finger, refusing to let their eyes land on it a second longer. When I demonstrated to a friend how my father’s right hand looked, he backed up in shock.”

Maaaring ituloy ang “Anak ka talaga ng Tatay mo” sa PDI Youngblood.

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Kaka-gradweyt lang ni MJ mula sa programang BA Communication Arts degree ng Unibersidad ng Pilipinas Los Baños. 

“No Juan chooses to be poor” | Darryl Thomas O. Gonzalez

“Perhaps a major reason for the trouble that I have shared is because I was born to a lower middle class family, and I never really had a taste of the affluent life. My parents are incredibly hardworking and responsible, but they could never land high-paying jobs because neither of them was able to finish college. My father only reached second-year college, while my mother could not complete even her elementary education. The primary reason was that education was expensive, and their lack of resources to continue held them back.”

Please continue “No Juan chooses to be poor” in PDI Youngblood.

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Darryl recently graduated with a BA Communication Arts degree from the University of the Philippines Los Baños. He frequently contributes to POP! Jr.

“Oo” | Emmanuel Lopez

“Bakla ka ba? In one of our computer science classes, we learned about disassembling and assembling PCs and troubleshooting whenever there is an error in the system. The first thing you need to do is make sure that the power cord is detached. Then you can start disassembling the unit in hopes of finding what is wrong. Getting asked whether I am gay or not has always been my power cord. Almost immediately, I would shut down because back then, I never really had an answer despite getting asked the same question over and over again. I tried to cover myself up with armor, but reality would almost always seep through the cracks, and people would know where to attack. Like the broken CPUs in our computer laboratory, I tried to disassemble myself, looking for something wrong within because people told me so. I took apart fragments of my being only to lose pieces of identity in the process, even when I wasn’t even broken in the first place.”

Maaaring ituloy ang “Oo” sa PDI Youngblood.

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Kaka-gradweyt lang ni Emman mula sa programang BA Communication Arts degree ng Unibersidad ng Pilipinas Los Baños. 

“Poem #2: Numbers” and “Poem #3: Bloodpower” | Krista Fama

  “My blood, they said, was powering up an alarm clock.”

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Krista graduated from the BA Communication Arts program of the University of the Philippines Los Baños. More lines of her poetry in The Philippines Graphic.

library of escalators

feel less

“Doggie” | Ysabella Dominique Lonzame

 “I have always treated Doggie as if he was alive and has feelings like a real dog. I thought about how sad he must be feeling from being left behind. I was on the verge of tears when I felt my foot hit something soft. I peered below my seat and there Doggie was! In my drowsy state, I may have forgotten that I was clutching Doggie while I was sleeping; I probably dropped him as I went deeper into my dreams.”

Kindly continue “Doggie” in PDI Youngblood.

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Ysa is a graduating communication arts student from the University of the Philippines Los Baños. She likes reading books and runs a bookstagram account (@bellamazingreads) where she occasionally writes reviews.

“All hail the romantic comedy!” | Regina Florene Tan

“I would never call myself a film buff. That title is reserved for the diehard Kurosawa fans, the Christopher Nolan slash David Fincher film bros, and my best friend Eiyah who apparently knows all up-and-coming Hollywood actors by name and birth year. I humbly refuse to align myself with them because while they were watching the decade’s list of Academy Award winners for Best Picture, I was probably arguing about seeing the next Adam Sandler feature in theaters with my dad.”

Consider reading “All hail the romantic comedy!” in Rappler.

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Reg is a graduating BA Communication Arts student at the University of the Philippines Los Baños. She spends the little time she has away from her academics watching films and writing short, often unserious, reviews on Letterboxd.

“In transit” | Jecko Sanjorjo

“There’s something awful about the physical movement of the in-transit-ness of commuting, too: It’s a stressful whiplash of a rush, like Morse code only with fuller and longer dashes, abruptly stopping here and there to pick up and drop off. You feel the passing of asphalt and cement beneath the roaring and vibrating mass of the vehicle’s floor.”

Kindly continue “In transit” in PDI Youngblood.

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Jecko is a senior communication arts student from the University of the Philippines Los Baños.

Sofia and Kim in Paragraph Planet

Beyond the sea

“To Abandon” by Joana Austria

“The Ocean Deep” by Gezryl Peter Tamayo 

“Next Chapter” by Ronan Gabriel Erni 

“Aftertaste” by Denelle Justine T. Ramos 

“IN MEMORY OF PEACE” by Yvonne M. Bandong 

“STEEP” by Kyla Chantal P. Dela Torre 

“How to Die a Thousand Afternoons” by Alya Maria Inciso 

In perhaps the happiest page of 2022, from the 68th issue, courtesy of Mark Young, who now closes Otoliths with his 70th release, an issue which sings this final page.