Deirdre Camba is an instructional designer from Marikina City. She received a Loyola Schools Award for the Arts in 2013, and was a fellow for poetry at a couple of national writer's workshops. Some of her poems are in Cordite Poetry Review, Ilahás, and 聲韻詩刊 Voice & Verse Poetry Magazine. Her latest chapbook, The Last Things You Will Save, was released in 2022.
M—, I believed you when you promised you once saved a girl’s life by telling her that drowning adds ten pounds to a corpse. It hasn’t stopped raining in Manila. I haven’t eaten rice in a week. Contrary to popular belief, organic matter putrefies twofold slower than flesh in open air. The pool water did not turn my hair green. Take a wild guess: how long before the discovery if I stop resisting the sea the way it can’t break before city anymore? When I didn’t know any better, I told you I refused to go back to a world where things didn’t know each other. This is why I’ve always kept one foot in the bluest brine. If you’re there tonight, tell me again that girls are more than bloated blue bodies—that I’d be miscast as a collapsed lung. Remind me that breathing is involuntary while my ears fill with water in the dark. Insist on your idiot chemistry and flattering colors for the dead. Please speak very loudly.