CLAUSTROPHIA

The Horizon, Vol. 1, No. 1, September 1995
(Official literary folio of Trinity College of Quezon City)


(Four bare and unpainted walls stood,
Surrounding me like thick metal panels of a destruction chamber;
Each about to advance and brutally crush
My fragile body into a thousand fragments
Of ugly, unidentifiable scraps of meat and bone.

Four dusty and dark corners stare at me
With ghastly glowing demonic eyes;
Like that of a hungry wolf's,
Keeping keen watch for the slightest chance
To gnaw its sharp fangs into my flesh.

I see the gray of the room turn into pitch-dark --
Like what the closed eyes of a dead child see,
As the corpse is lovingly laid to rest in a coffin;
And the casket is close-fistedly sealed,
Then lowered into the dismal pit in the ground.

I feel I am losing the air abour me;
As if its autonomous and carefree flight
Is suddenly restricted and stopped by some force,
Making my skin damp and cold to touch,
And my throat becoming spasmodic.)

I hate being locked in a room all by myself.

(February 1993)