Letter #27: Twelve
Hello, Lia. You turned 12 today. I am walking in the arid, sticky…
Author: Gretchen Filart
Gretchen is a Best of the Net and Pushcart Prize-nominated poet and essayist from the Philippines, where she embraces life while managing bipolar disorder and ADHD. Her confessional pieces unpack the complexities of grief, healing, motherhood, love, and intersections, garnering recognition from the Greg Grummer Poetry Contest and Navigator's Travel Writing Competition.
Letter #26: Loving You Like a Haribon
Hello, Lia. By the time you read this, I would’ve told you that…
The world is f*cked, but I still love it and my soft heart hurts.
Walking in the world with a soft heart after Aaron Bushnell’s self-immolation, three deaths, and seeing the poor slapped by systemic failure.
I celebrate my birthday, soaked in rainwater, mothering a sick kid
Thirty-nine years. No longer out for blood – my own, always. No shards…
When I think of leaving, I remember my daughter the night we lost the elections
I’m tired of this shithouse of a country:its coddling with thieves and tyrants,…
41 kilometers
News: The Halo Space delivers the ultimate flight experience, taking adventurous souls to…
In every sheepfold
A black sheep banishedBy meek lambs for breaking freeOf a wooden fenceWhile they…
When I send my sexual abuse poems to Western magazines, they always end up rejected
My poems are orphans in blood-stained underwear waiting for an arm to reach…
Even the scarred can dream on new year’s eve
A hopeful New Year’s poem, written on New Year’s Day 2023, while recovering from a heartbreak
Sailing together
After W.S Merwin’s Traveling Together If we are lost at sea I willwait…
For my niece struggling with bipolar disorder
There is a darkness in this world that even the world can’t put a…
Ways I resist our colonizers
My “Third World” tongue is learned in wars. Putang ina, gago, and tarantado taste…
A letter from a Filipina to potential foreign mates
Listen: the ones in my past lives tanked my heart in a war zone…
A 40th Birthday Boudoir Photo Shoot (and Some Takeaways)
*CONTENT WARNING: Mention of sexual assault and suicide. Please proceed only if you…
Distant love smells like
The musty trees of your old letters, alphabet hanging from twigs. Ylang ylang blooms…
I don’t like makahiya
Because I associate everything with love: weeds, parenting, work, roads, food, Netflix shows,…