2021

John Rey Dave Aquino has stories published in Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, The Literary Apprentice, and Anak Sastra. He holds a BA in Language and Literature from the University of the Philippines Baguio. He was a fellow for fiction at the 17th Ateneo National Writers Workshop.

  • A Boy, Inarticulate

    When Jeremy’s godmother and god brother arrived at the Rosaleses’ house on an unbearable summer afternoon in April, it was not only to say hi. It was summer break, and Jeremy was up on a high branch of the mango tree in their backyard. He liked climbing there because of the cooler, fresher air. When…

  • Monsoon Madness

  • To Leonard Matlovich

    Those cartridges that are emptyare golden like the sunlightand the highlights of his hair.He loved that gold like he loved the petalsof the flowering daffodils gleamingin the dawn with auric splendor.The bullets are scattered like seeds of loss,two cold bodies of men, obliviousto the blood that seepsover the ground

  • Kintsugi

    Paano susumpainang nagpapatihulog? Kung ginto ang dugong didilasa mga tipak,  kung gintoang magiging bitak 

  • Dead Chicken

    I murmur an apology to the skull in my hand, no lighter than a handful of pesos.The curve of its beak winds into a low note,a soulful whistle that carries me to a graveyard where I writhe under the soil. Schoolboys place me on the end of a twig,confines me in a box with a spider.I am no…