Deirdre Camba, Marikina City 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.



Blue, Without End


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.