I send my mother 1.5 million pesos monthly for my postpartum wife. Coming home early, I found my wife eating spoiled rice with fish heads. Furious, I confronted my mom, who sneered, “She doesn’t deserve better.” Then, I checked the family safe and found…

intoxicating lie that a man validates his existence, and his love, purely through the agonizing sacrifice of his own body. I had swallowed that doctrine whole. By the time my son drew his first breath in this world, I had willingly transfigured my existence into an endless loop of grueling shifts, throbbing joints, and silent vows muttered against continue reading …