childhood poem

A lot of you may have grown up with prudent and conservative people where anything related to sex and profanity is taboo. Well, that's exactly the opposite of me. I grew up with people who can spew 50 curses in one breath. Take our next door neighbor of old, Nang Maria, for example. Like everyone else's she had a teenage daughter who knew nothing at that time but go to parties and come home late at night wasted. One day, her daughter asked if she can go out with her friends. Somehow, Nang Maria's already full of it when suddenly she yelled on top of her voice "Lakaw gyud karong gabhiona, di ba magdagan unya ka padungs gawas nga walay ulo, koleraha ka!!!" Usually it's followed by a string of profanity that somehow amused the entire neighborhood.

Translation: Try going out tonight then you will be running out of this house beheaded.

If I am late for lunch or dinner, which usually happens a lot of times, then my mom would ask one of my aunties where the hell I was and all of a sudden I appeared out of nowhere all sweaty from an extended game of dakop-dakop or tago-tago (Translation: catch me if you can or hide and seek). My auntie would retort to something of this effect, "Diara ang inatay ay. Singot na pod kaayo. Asa na pod kaha ni nagkiat-kiat."

Translation: Here's that devil. All sweaty. Where in hell could have he been?

Remember those times when it was so fun to run around the house specially with your friends and then knock out something like flower vases or books in the shelf. Usually I would get this kind of scolding, "Pisti gyud ninyo uy! Panggawas mo didto, mga animala mo!"

Translation: Damn you all. Get out of here, you animals.

That is home to me. Looking back at it right now, I wouldn't want it to be any other way. Believe me there's more to my childhood than these obscenities. In fact, childhood for me is synonymous with swimming in Banakod (a semi-islet a stone's throw away from home in Bogo) every afternoon and stealing sinagwelas or tambis during nighttime. It was all fun.

I had a very vivid memory of one night, when I was 4 or 5 years old, where I sit at Tito Bari's lap outside the house. With all his patience, he taught me my first ever poem that was forever etched in my memory. He's looking a bit suspicious but I didn't know it at that time. Every time he would say the last word of the poem, he would whisper it on my ear. After memorizing, he took me back to the house then announced to everybody that I'm gonna recite something. He perched me up on a table in our living room with all my aunties and uncles, mom included, eagerly awaited for my number. Then with all the volume my immature vocal cords can muster, I recited this poem in iambic heptameter.

Ako si Leon Kilat nagalatay kos dagat
Kung inyo kong masugat, hutdon ko kamog kayat

Translation:
My name's Leon Kilat, I walk on seas
If ever our paths crossed, you all I'm gonna fuck

This is followed by different reactions of amusement and awe with a round of applause.

If I may say so boldly, I have the best childhood I can ever ask for.