On August 16, 2017, 17-year-old Kian delos Santos was accosted by police during a drug raid, and later shot. Investigations revealed he was unarmed despite police claims. CCTV footage cleared him of the accusations. Kian was one of thousands killed in Duterte’s drug war. —GMA News, Philippines
The boy in mid-step,
feet barely touching pavement.
Once, he was in color, as he ran through sunlit streets;
You got a fast car. I want a ticket to anywhere.
Now bulls who carry the weight of no names
drag him past alleyways,
a maze of dead ends swallowing a thousand stories.
The lens whirs,
the body blurs into something not quite whole,
Up he goes in the data stream,
from blue and red, his thin clothes fade into shades of gray.
I had a feeling that I belonged.
The lampposts flicker,
as though unsure if they should watch,
while a dog whines, watching from the corner.
The boy opens his mouth to plead and out comes
his mother, his father, a flock of doves spilling from his lips,
their wings catching on the lamplight
before they disappear into the night.
Maybe we’ll make a deal.
His last words fall like a prayer,
the air hanging onto them,
the last before everything breaks,
breaking him apart.
I remember we were driving, driving in your car.
Then the fall,
slow—
knees to the ground.
The earth welcomes him in a cradle of mud, filth, and glass.
His head bows to a fetal surrender,
like an anguished horse, mouth open in a silent scream.
Two shots to the head,
one to the back.
Far away, a weeping woman wails in sorrow,
grief has become a cheap commodity in this city.
The frame zooms in:
a gun, too big for his fingers, the missing slipper,
the details that the camera collects,
like confessions whispered too late.
Wide shot.
The focus pulls back—his body shrinking, becoming part of the street.
As black blood blooms across the pavement.
It spreads like a question,
unanswered,
as the stars above—indifferent.
You got a fast car; is it fast enough so we can fly away?
My eyes see it all,
every fall,
every scream,
in monochrome
where black and white collide.
You still gotta make a decision.
