But don't do this with fanfare--

I have come here not as a pilgrim
quick with a flagellant's whip,
or an acrobat out to perform stunts
up and down this circus of sloping
hills. Neither am I a martyr,
to be crowned with thorns, to first cut
these trails and flounder and commend
the spirit in one passionate moment
nailed to death.

Hell no, I'm not any of these, definitely.

I have come here with a backpack
of what will sustain me through this trek:
bottled water, packs of crackers and cigarettes--
yes, the smoke, in case of an overdose of oxygen;
I've included a wide-brimmed buri hat
that sits snugly on my brown-dyed hair
(I've always maintained to wear the color
of my skin on my head), to shade a dimming
vision from sun's glaring stares.

I have come here, fresh out of a stupor
from a night's drinking at a nameless downtown
bar, as a man-child mumbling a litany of protest
about the muggy weather, tormenting these sacred
spaces with my maligned presence;
I have no delusions that I'd find
redemption or solicit promise of paradise
at the end of this-- this,
which isn't even an act of sacrifice.

For isn't sacrifice about giving
up some thing, or things one can't live
without? Or, things one lives for?

Talk about some cheap sex in a motel
room where haggling for scrimped space
are familiar fixtures--the dust, a bed
that moans under the weight of lust,
and rats rattling behind walls;
say, books on sale and other fashionable stuff
I'd grabbed at discounts in the open market,
only to be stacked in shelves, left bitten by time,
that same fleeing companion, guiltless
and sweet-toothed, I'd share, over beer or coffee,
with friends, they who give their hearts like fists
after arguing about corruption and my ego,
pointless, they say, as the induced alcohol in my body.

What about nightcaps of hormonal rush
at the prospect of either getting
mugged, or talked into a quick fix of love
at a dark-dappled corner, when cruising
in the backalleys of the city.
There, strange shadows are known
to move, to hound noiselessly like the snake
in the vines slithering to its prey;
the amorseco grains that cling
desperately to the hem of my pants,
without notice.

But what is there to lose,
anyway, when all these, much like this body,
will soon see the light of end?
What pureness of profanity
that propels me to take each frail
step forward? So, I continue to trudge
my way up against the gravity, with this
lightness of my back's burden, despite the possibility
of fear that may, without warning,
descend, lick, and leave its sting
like the bursts of sweat on my skin
while the trails behind me
turn themselves over.

Likewise, uncertainties await ahead:
the gathering clouds, certain though,
to break loose from a sky shackled
to its boundlessness.

It strikes me now this arcane fact
that there's nothing to understand,
much less, explain, in this wanton
wandering, whether the answers be a throb
in my bloodless heart, a votive flicker
in the faint incandescent light in a love-
lorn room, where my desire, aching like my limbs,
may hurl itself into the void of sleep.

If you please, lend me some rest.

Because here, on this hump on a hill,
I have come such as this tree that stands
lonesome and drooping over my head,
as though in a gesture of surrender---
maybe to fate, to love, or the lack of both.