Old Shirt Hanging

Old Shirt Hanging

By: Renz Gerald T. Romualdez

I gasped the first air of a new beginning.

Keep the punished past remain unrequited

like an old shirt hanging. I gasped for two—

that is how I remember you;

Through the emptiness of first day of January;

hollow balloons, dirty spoons and broken bottles.

Clean your past year's mess on your last night's dress. I gasped for three.

I breathe in the smoke of a rabbit's comedy.

I soaked your red flags in bleach, turn them peach fuzz,

carelessly thankful if it touched the jeepney's rust.

And with the peony catch the fire of truth—

a fire from a wood dragon that we once called youth.

I gasped for four, I am not sure. I implore

for unjustified density, when I was supposed to be the bigger man.

I think again and again, and write it with my pen.

I gasped for the last time; clenched fist, about to punch my cruelty.

First day of January, I remember you

right in front of this mirror, like an old shirt hanging.

With eyes tired as if they are begging—beginning

to realize the three hundred and more days coming.

As I stand there breathing, only hoping,

with panoply of vengeance and ruth.

Now I will sleep the party of life incandescently

in remembrance of me on the first day of January.

A poem that celebrates our past selves and confronts them. Like an old shirt hanging, we must be washed—to change is to initiate it; we must clean up our bad habits, attitudes, and messed-up souls. It also serves as a reminder that we did not have it all figured out in the beginning. We can take a deep breath and sleep, as we have another hundred days ahead of us.