Poems That Rhyme

During a competition, my wife's childhood friend switches my climbing chalk out for flour. When I'm about to win the competition, my hands slip, and I fall from a rock climbing wall that's several feet high. I'm covered in blood. My wife doesn't care about my survival, though. She tells the doctor to prioritize her childhood friend, who's feigned a fainting spell from the blood. Later, I discover that my wife condoned her childhood friend in switching out the chalk. Why did she do it? Because she was worried that her childhood friend, who was never good at physical activities, would be sad if I were to win. Yet, when I lose hope in her and ask for a divorce, she cries and tells me I'm the one she loves.

Veronica, a musician in a band, finds herself on a sticky wicket when she realizes that the man of her dreams—Théo Reynaud—is an elaborate masquerade to his danger-seeking alter ego. As she tries to stay relevant in the music scene, she battles depression and bouts of anxiety while dealing with a dysfunctional long-distance relationship. Théo is a fashion model striving to make a good living in the cutthroat industry while moonlighting as an informant. After a vindictive crime boss endangers his family, he is tasked to complete his final assignment to keep his loved ones out of harm's way, and be with the woman he loves. ▬▬▬▬▬▬ genres: CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE, CRIME, DRAMA ▬▬▬▬▬▬ This is a work of fiction. Places, characters, dialogues, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination, or are used fictitiously. This story contains profanity, sexual themes, drug usage, and some violence intended for mature readers. Read at your own risk. [DISCLAIMER: The author does not own the original images on the book cover.]

Havoc Alexana Javier over-organized every single thing, but not her thoughts when Meter Ozuluen De Leon was around. Since childhood, Havoc already knew how her eyes sparkled just by seeing Meter from afar. The butterflies, the chills, the blushes—they all started with a happy crush until that feeling developed through time. As they faced the early years of adulthood, things suddenly changed. Meter was a heartthrob and he was always chased by girls. As everyone else expected, he got a girlfriend at a young age. On the other hand, Havoc who had a huge crush on him found herself shocked because she was not that sad. It hurt her but not to the point that she would hysterically slap someone's face for stealing someone she never owned in the first place. Maybe because… Rhyme Okideo De Leon was there. Meter's twin brother. Havoc's closest friend. Rhyme always supported Havoc even with her crazy feelings for his twin and whenever it went overboard, he was still there for her—guiding and protecting her. He was consistent. But as time went by, his actions changed due to some inevitable disasters in Havoc's life. Probably because Rhyme needed to help her in his ways. The Rhyme ways—the things he kept holding for a very long time.

My name is Rayne and I've always been alone in life. Except for him… The Demon that watches me in the night. Reavers are ruthless, blood thirsty creatures. Disguised as distinguished gentlemen in suits and ties, the brothers will kill without rhyme or reason. Everything about them is made to attract you, make you forget that you should be fucking running the opposite direction. And it works. I live in the most powerful pack in the world. But even my Alpha is afraid of the brothers. The Reaver with eyes of molten gold, hunts me like it's a fucking game. He follows me, watches me in secret, and makes himself known if I do something he doesn't like… It's been 7 years since he laid his claim on me, but he should have let me fucking drown. He tries to control every aspect of my life, but I will do what I want, when I want, and I would like to see him try and fucking stop me. In fact, I'm counting on it… I refuse to be anyone's puppet. Not the Demon who watches me, not my Alpha's, and sure as fuck not the Demon's younger brother. I've heard the whispers. I know there's something different about me... But that gives exactly no one the right to think they fucking own me. How much am I willing to give up to prove that point? I ask myself this question, and then make a choice… A choice that nearly destroys me. Lucky for me, The Darkness would never let me face this trauma alone… With The Darkness on my side, I feel fucking invincible, and I'm going to go out of my way to make sure that everyone knows exactly where I fucking stand. (Book 1 in The Reaver Chronicles Series)

Tunnels deconstructs the individual’s Romantic fascination with ‘love’ or the grammaticality of beauty. Ideally, the ‘tunnels’ in the collection are subterranean love poems from the suburban imaginary. These seemingly syntactic tunnels travel through one’s literary imagination or heterotopic dreamscapes, and while αγάπη (Greek for ‘love’) inspires these rhizomic tunnels to navigate the abysmal ‘meta-spectacle’ of gesture, language or moment of poemness, the mind like the many-colored jeepneys of Manila, where driving past roast goose restaurants in Shek Kip Mei or spotting stilt houses in Kampong Kleang, attempt to explore the transgeneric textualities of the everyday, alongside the unstructurality of time and space, the littoral and the liminal.

While cleaning Desmond Maynard's house, I accidentally knocked over his mother's keepsake. He once told me it was his most precious possession. But when I picked it up, hundreds of love letters spilled out. There were beautiful poems, passionate lyrics, and heartfelt confessions. He had written one letter a week without stopping. On the back of each one wrote a line: To My Love, Bunny. The nickname rang a bell. It was his junior in college. Things started to make sense. I slaved away for 13 years, running his household and caring for his family, but Desmond never even said he liked me. That was because he already had someone he liked. I sorted the letters by date, put them back, and grabbed my phone to make a call. "Mom, I'm in for the marriage proposal."