Jerri-Anne Rafanan
BECAUSE I LOVE YOU
Your voice is like the clearing in the woods. A song like troubadour guitars. Your kiss is my torment, my forgiveness, my redemption, my awakening. Your eyes though they are turned away, are like sweet ocean mist. Your touch is my equilibrium, my freedom. I get lost the night that you hold me, and i lose control the times you kiss me. You drive me crazy, a madness that i cannot control. You are my everything, i need nothing because you are my blessing. You fill my soul with riches of your heart. I have no fears, you are my devotion. You enchant me, you're all i need. You give me tranquility with your caress, your voice, your heart. You are more than just my song. With you is where i know i belong. I love you!
Jerri-Anne Rafanan
Eternal Dreams of Passage
In the stillness of my epiphany, in the darkness of this rage, in the moment of a sudden breath taken away by age, in the road of empty travels, and the storms of inner revenge, as a little girl unravels upon her perpetrator's hands. He slowly sneaks through the forbidden door, through the net of white, through the noise of quiet crickets, in the crescent fallen night. He puts a finger upon his lips, he tells to say no more, and in my nightmares of reality, as if a demon walked through the moor. He makes me close my fearful eyes, and rain beset my chest, I cry like the entire world is gone, and emptiness left the rest. Through the twilight, through the voice of nightfall's rain, through the quiet stabbing scream, through the terror that I've been. At last I feel so folded, a little flower at rest, it sways to show no beauty, it hides its aching mess. It blooms distinct the spring leaves, unlike the fields of grass, a little girl just longing for this eternal pain to pass. Hold tight until the morning, hold tight until the day, and keep your silent weeping until he walks away. Grip on to your only transience, grip on to illusory dreams, do not wonder do not ponder; don't depend on what it means. And as this existence may scroll on, as the shadows continue to follow, as the child in me is growing and awaiting my tomorrow, the nights hold me no refuge, the days just empty space, the crying child still lingers as I long to find my place. And though the days have passed me and survival of those nights, and though the stormy weather dreams have left in ancient flights, the man is still waiting in my nightmares, through the unforgiving moor, and in these dreams I cannot help to fear the forbidden door. So in this stillness of my adulthood, in the hours of empty hopes, in the chills of summer pains and passing through to cope, I still feel this dim epiphany, in the darkness of my rage, in the moment of my painful breath taken away by age.
Jerri-Anne Rafanan
Un-Forbidden Rhapsody of You
Under this faded light of the sun and changing frequency of time -Under the sequence of fallen rain and a rhapsody of this is mine- Quivering in endless spectacle the road of forever at dawn- Any a many in every horizon and knowing that you are my own- Filtered among those of the grim moon, passage through eternal rise -Morning awakened this hungry soul seeing your smile and in your eyes.- Hoping that on the rubbing touch traveling upon my wonderland -Free in the excitement of ecstasy and earthquakes of your tender hand. -Getting the river of a flowing kiss, momentum upon this equation -Bringing a variable of a breath a wonder of glimpsing devotion- And all i hold is a completed glide through this pass a life in its due, -Eternal atmosphere of un-forbidden love that this unburdened heart finds in you
I love you my Toto, My Reuben Frank Jr, My Babe, My Mahal, My Love Love always Tata
Jerri-Anne Rafanan
I AM UGLY
I am ugly because
I am not the one you want I am not the tall woman who
Is blond and eyes of blue I am the one unseen none knew
I am ugly because I am not the one with that in back
The butt so round and strong The boobs that pop up
I am just a friendly stop I am ugly because
I am not the beauty that you long Not the person Not the height
Not the figure Not the might Not the smile Not the laugh
Not the brains Not the right stuff Not the front Not the swing
Not the stanceJust a thing Not the walk Not the talk
Not the feel Not the hold Not the hug Not the right mold
Not the dream Nor fantasy Not the ideal Bride to be
Not the body Of a mermaid Not the mind If it was important
Not the personality If in this body Not the smile If in this height
Not the front You want your friends to see Not the one of pride to be Not the stereotype
Not the hot babe Not the “damn she’s fine” Not the submissive slave Not the strength you want
Although you do not know Not one to bring to mama Or family and friends Not the right religion
Not the right likes Not the taste Not the right family
I’m not the one with the blue eyes Not the one with silver blond hair
Not the one with the perfect height Not the one with the body to stare
Not the one you would love to feel Not the one not the right one
Not the ideal
I am ugly because
You do not know me
Jerri-Anne Rafanan
Who is me?
I sit at the windowsill looking at the life’s depth. Of what I am or who I be? Is being a filipina what I feel is me? Is being this little brown girl making me see my identity, my reality or do I deny who is me? I walked passed the trees while the flowers and fallen leaves cheer my feet. And I cannot enthrall myself into thinking that my ideas, my morals, what was and is still instilled in me conflicts with finding my identity. I wonder a lot about those like me. I do not have any friends the color of me. The origin like me, the hair or talk or thoughts like me. I do not have the people who surround me like me. All I see is what I have grown up to believe. To believe that this country is great, to believe that my people are not mine but is everybody’s. So I sit again not at the windowsill, you see, but in a room. Finally, I am with people like me. They are pieces of me. But are they really? The skin, maybe, their origins, maybe, their hair, maybe, but their hearts and the paths to their depths of life, I have a hard time believing any are like me. So I will walk again. Walk on, you see. And leave this room of people like me, of pieces of me. And in this walk, not by the flowers and fallen leaves, you see, but in life, and I think, is this little brown girl making me see my identity, my reality, or do I deny who is me?
Jerri-Anne Rafanan
A Nothing Morning
Enticed by the aroma of coffee leisurely nomadic in the air, music transcending with it and the sounds of aged era thirties and forties with a mention of "nature man" in the lyrics. I sing along to it recollecting the words and riveting the meanings into a most evocative sense only there is nothing that memory relates. Mornings are just full of it. Full of everything and nothing. Everything is like the crackle of morning engines and fast-speeding vehicles and, slow moving buses in the misty morning where sunlight appears in its most shadowy moment. Cool air does not escape me as I watch from the van window the calm yet hasty sense of the morning. Windy roads, cold trees lining the mode with their blue or black branches toting up a hint of dark green and yellow on its extensions. Reaching destination, only to grip the cold breeze sliding past my ears and around my neck, sensing no time or place but this morning of nothing and everything in place. I observe green in the mist of its dew and the squirrels in their morning venture to steal food from the birds, climbing recklessly down the planted trees scattering the feathers of white and grey in the air, rustle a hustle and bustle and purring of the pigeons. Although the aroma still entices me, especially upon entrance to the coffee shop, I hold myself reluctant to continue in my endeavor of the book and close its covers on page sixty. Just a little over a hundred more pages to go and the goals sink in to finish it by noon. Hunger hasn't controlled my stomach though the bagel was toasted. No trip to the lavatory this morning although I sense that it will eventually appeal during the wee hours of the ending of lecture. Then the rush of it will sink into my concentration undiscerning to the supposed important information transcribed by my brain from the lecturer. It's a morning of everything in where everything will start, either of rest, calmness and relaxation or of worry, business and anxiety all in the effort to evade boredom in this fragile society of racketing activity. And all this time, I gaze at my fingers either cold or dry and put the fragrant lotion to moisten them. At last, it is also a morning of nothing. The shininess of the band shows a distorted image of myself and a sinking heart descends in my head and running warmth in my body. It is a morning of nothing because I feel nothing, nothing but the longing of your face, warmth, touch, voice and love. Mornings are nothing without you. Only you make every morning, to me, everything.
Jerri-Anne Rafanan
RAIN
So i guess God decided to rain down on me a gallon of blessings. I wasn't sure what it was. there were colors and prisms everywhere, colors that i had never seen would be so beautiful under such an awesome light. I wondered why he sent it down to me. I wondered if the rain was sprinkling of happiness or pouring of love. With the rain came a certain essence. a feeling that flowed through my spine and to my heart. I didn't understand it, i couldn't grasp it's meaning. I tried and i tried with the meager that i knew to figure out what the feeling was. It rang in my head so often that i could not control such delight. Then i woke up that morning, and the rain was still pouring. i wondered how long the rain would pour. I put my raincoat on and decided to run in the rain, splash in the puddles and raise my eyes to the sky. The feeling came over me again, this time i began to feel better, to understand it though i struggled to deny it. I went home and smiled, for if he let these blessings pour, i did not want Him to stop pouring. The next day, i went outside, it was more beautiful than i had hoped. the rain had stopped but in its place, the colors were spread across a sea of awe. It was everywhere, in my house, my life, my heart. I looked towards the front picket gate and there, the essence that had overwhelmed me overcame me again. The feeling that flowed through my spine and my heart. But this time, i didn't want to grasp it. This time i didn't want to deny it. This time it didn't matter if i understood it. And then i realized, the blessings were still pouring, not of rain or colors or sky, but of one thing that came through that picket fence towards me. That one that spread the arms that overtook me. And as i looked up to the sky and thanked God, i knew he was still raining down on me a gallon of blessings, a big gallon wrapped up and bound in YOU!
Jerri-Anne Rafanan