I am to you
 
a vine that crawls up
the cold concrete wall
that remains unflinching
to the unyielding friction
of my verdant advance
and unimpressed
by the criss cross
that my tender tendrils
weave all over its face.
 
Or
 
blood from the head
of the freshly-assassinated
that still leaks and spills
and blooms and gropes
for the final shape and form
of its warm dark red pool
on the parking lot’s asphalt
that neither asked for
nor absorbs it. 

…

Karlo Sevilla of Quezon City, Philippines is the author of the full-length poetry collection “Metro Manila Mammal” (Soma Publishing, 2018). Recognized among the Best of Kitaab 2018, shortlisted in the Oxford Brookes International Poetry Competition 2021, and thrice nominated for the Best of the Net, his poems appear in Philippines Graphic, Protean, Matter, Radius, DIAGRAM, Better Than Starbucks, and elsewhere.