MARIA: Adaptation

MARIA: adaptation

the weather here is hot, it is like Indonesia. 9.33 pm you are older, so take care of ahmad, make sure he is okay in school. mummy loves u all 9.35 pm - yes, things here are more expensive. I went to their supermarket today. 10.02 pm don’t worry abt me, just take care of the children. I will take care too. 10.05 pm the boss keeps scolding me, she called me a stupid bitch Delete draft? Cancel | OK my employer keeps giving me meat, but she knows i don’t eat meat Delete draft? Cancel | OK i am very scared that my employer will report me to my agency Delete draft? Cancel | OK my employer is very nice, the pay is good. 11.23 pm I miss all of u very much 11.30 pm yes, I want to go home Delete draft? Cancel | OK no, it’s okay this is for our children’s future 12.24 am

poem: how to stay

or, on loving an assassin

I know. You are always afraid

not of staying, but of what would happen

if you stayed.

You grew up learning

that attachment gets you killed.

You emerged from your mother’s womb

only to discover firsthand

the meaning of abandonment.

You think I don’t notice the way

your fingers                           tremble

when you hold me in your arms.

How you can grip a sword instinctively

but touch me

like I am made

of glass, of smoke.

You think I closed my eyes

when I said I love you.

I love you. I love you.

I hear it in your heartbeat.

Even as you tell me, please,

leaving is all I know—

it hammers wildly, thumps the way

prey runs from predator.

What I need you to know

is not staying. It’s that

I saw everything

and loved you anyway.

If your hands shake I will hold them steady.

If you need to be reminded I am real

I will let you press your fingertips against my pulse,

run your palms along my shoulders,

kiss me like I am water

and you have been parched all your life.

If home has only ever been a series

of temporary houses and rooftops,

let me be the one to teach you permanence.

I know. In the mirror, all you see

is a weapon made flesh.

What I am saying is that

I will be your scabbard.

You do not need to know staying.

After all, you already know

how to come back.

————–

this poem was written for Saizo (from SLBP) because I love Saizo a lot and have no self-control when it comes to him. I hope you like it! please leave comments if you have thoughts on it (and constructive criticism if any) ♡ also, annoyingly enough, tumblr mobile likes to mess around with the formatting of my poems ha ha thx so click here if you’d like to see it on google docs!!

You can’t love the things you never hold, so soften your fists.

Meta Sarmiento - “Watch Your Mouth”

One of the submissions from our first-ever video contest. Keep an eye out for our next submission period, open soon! Help bring Button to you.

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ii. Seven Days

or, How God Created the World Using RPG Maker

This is the sequel to The Beginning of the Beginning.

Again, please do not be offended by this work. It is not meant to be taken seriously. Also, there are many quotes from the Book of Genesis since this is a parody of the beginning of the world as told by the Bible.

Also I sound really serious but I’m just laughing inside bc I just remembered I wrote this last year

Before the beginning, God sat in front of his laptop (taken from the future - God blessed that poor soul who had their laptop stolen) and opened up the Map Editor in RPG Maker VX Ace. The archangel Michael stood next to him, and received, with a sigh, the laptop from God’s hands (Michael had read the online tutorials before God whisked it away to the present, where there was no Wi-Fi).

Thus, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep.

“Just make a bunch of black tiles. Whatever I say is going to go into the Bible so I need to sound a little dramatic,” God whispered to Michael. Then he cleared his throat so that Gabriel could transcribe his words properly.

And God said, “Let there be light,” and Michael created some pastel yellow tiles. And God saw that the light was aesthetically pleasing. So God separated the light from the darkness by having Michael separate the yellow and black tiles. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

“I can’t believe we spent a whole day making some tiles,” God sighed.

Then God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.”

Michael looked up and frowned. “What is that even supposed to mean?”

God huffed. “What, am I too confusing for you? Just make some blue tiles, separate them vertically and call the ones at the top ‘The Heavens’. Don’t put this part in the Bible, please,” he whispered to Gabriel. And so Michael did as he was told and called their residence ‘Heaven’. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.

And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. Michael created blue tiles and placed them alongside yellow, brown and green tiles. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.

And God said, “Let the Earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” And it was so. Michael grumbled a little, muttering something about how he could have just said so before he created the green and brown tiles. He made forests and jungles and inserted random plant tiles all over the map, before dumping the green and brown tiles somewhere in the abyss. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning, the third day.

And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth.”

Michael sighed. “This is definitely going to take the whole day. How many seasons do you want to have?” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Gabriel was dozing off, his carving tool slipping out of his hand. Good job on lasting this long, Gabriel, he thought to himself. Eventually, though, it was indeed so, and God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

And God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens.” So Michael created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarm, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. This took them quite some time, considering how God was rather ambitious and wanted the earth to have over a million species of animals.

“Why does that fish look like the charging cable for this laptop?” God asked, peering at the laptop screen. “It looks like it’s literally just a grey rectangle.”

“Why don’t you try making them and tell me how it goes,” Michael shot back, while creating another fish. God sulked.

“Anyway, I see that it is passably good. Write that down, Gabriel,” God called out. “Oh yeah, and give them my blessings. Quote me: Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth (God, Way BC).” Gabriel sighed. And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.

And God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds - livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds.”

Michael exclaimed, “What the hell is that supposed to be? What even are creeping things? God, you have issues.”

“What the heaven,” God corrected him. Michael sighed (how many times? God knows). “Just make some cows or whatever, some bugs and a bunch of beasts.”

“Do you mean bugs like bugs bugs, or like glitches?”

“I mean like bugs bugs. They’re the creeping things, because they’re so creepy. I imagine it will be a blast watching humans try to deal with them.”

And thus, after some discussion, it was indeed so. (This was when the abominable creatures we know to be cockroaches today were created.) And God saw that it was good, and would probably be hilarious sometime in the future.

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

“Why can’t you just summarise it and say ‘literally everything on earth’? It makes things so much easier,” Michael grumbled. But he did indeed create man in God’s image, or at least as best as he could with a few pixels.

“Is he supposed to be naked?”

“Yeah, and make a woman too so they can procreate.”

And God blessed them. God leaned close to the laptop and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth. Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. And God saw everything he had made (with the help of Michael), and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.

“Is that what’s going into the Bible? Gabriel, can you add a note saying that I basically did all the programming? Thanks,” Michael said, scowling a little.

“Good work, Michael and Gabriel. It is over. We may all rest now,” God patted both him and Gabriel.

“Thank God!” Michael closed the laptop and walked off.

“You’re welcome!” God called to his retreating figure.

EPILOGUE: 20 JULY, 1969

When they stepped foot on the moon, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin could only look around in wonder. “My god,” Neil whispered. “This is all I’ve lived for.”

“Hold up, Neil. Look at that stuff over on the right. What are those?”

Together, they stared at the green and brown tiles floating in mid-space (there’s not much air in space). “Is…that a glitch? What the hell?” Neil exclaimed.

Somewhere in Heaven, God frowned. “What the heaven,” he corrected him. “And Michael, aren’t those tiles from when you were making plants?”

“Oh yeah, they are. Oops.”

I am no mortician. I have no idea how to put makeup on the dead. I have no idea how to unerase.

Andrea Gibson - “Prism”

Andrea Gibson, featuring at Button Poetry Live, April 2017. Make Button Poetry grow.

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I suppose we wear our traumas the way the guillotine wears gravity; our lovers’ necks are so soft.

Andrea Gibson - “Prism”

Don’t miss this week’s Best of Button playlist! Today’s additions: Andrea Gibson and Reagan Myers. Congratulations poets!

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