We are the sufferers who suffer for natural love of man for another man, who commemorate the humanities of every man. We are the creators of abundance.

— Carlos Bulosan

i

When Miguel and I

First discovered each other

At the age of 9,

I knew I would never

Be the same. Together,

Our bodies are golden.

A boy is a boy because

He is made of water.

Miguel tells me he is

Born out of yeast.

And then, quarried from

That cold darkness,

He transforms into a bottle

Of glass. I watch my mother

Pick Miguel up and

Swallow him down.

i

In an alternate reality, my suicide attempt is successful. I am undressed for the autopsy the way you prepare to lose your virginity. External examinations reveal that my body is teeming with cities and crowded tenements, violent factories and hands denied of purpose. I wanted to feel needed, so I died. I wanted to feel needed, so I moved to New York.

i

In this version, I am no longer the moon,

Bloated with blue light. We take democracy for granted.

Back home, you’d get electrocuted for living like this.

Extrajudicized for 100 years. Freedom is a fantasy.

In America, God is the government. Here, I am also free

To be killed, but at least I can speak  my mind.

I gather beneath the lynch trees, amidst hysterical mobs,

Where the prisoner is beaten to confess a crime

He did not commit. But at least I’ve been spared

From tyranny.  Remember, my faith is a living thing,

It can be crippled and bruised. God becomes a jasmine

Becomes a cradle becomes the fruit

Of my sweetest labor.

i

Sa likod mo! I shriek at Rissy, and water breaks upon our raft like glass. For a moment, we are completely deluged by shards of liquid starlight. All I can make of Rissy is their crumbling hair and eyes the color of nectar. I would know. Unless want is completely annihilated, even honeybees are denied their freedom. I wipe my face and look behind us. Miles along the Yakima, fires are still visible from the valley. Out of desperation, I burn my poetry books to keep us warm. It does not matter. You cannot be creative if you have nothing to eat, no time or ability to read and discuss things. You cannot be creative if you are merely alive. Below us, Miguel clinks in his bottle like windchimes.

i

In this version, I’ve loved Rissy all day.

Our home is whittled at the wedges,

Dogs yapping, sweaty sun. Tiredness,

Like a blister, is a mere fretting,

And we have not yet searched the land

For something to hold.

We are no longer shackled to the agriculture

Of faithfulness — or rather,

We are no longer barred from enjoying

Our own produce. In this version,

None of us are robbed.  Rissy produces a song.

I produce a poem.

My mother produces an addiction.

The curtain falls, and my love

Becomes an orchard: a multitude of choice,

Bereft of all desire.

i

My people wanted to feel needed, so we became factory hands,

Field hands, mill hands. We became doctors and nurses

And helpers. We became soldiers in exchange for respect.

Liberty always comes with a price. For my mother,

This meant death. For me, this meant loneliness.

We’re good at our jobs, even if no one thanks us.

We are a flowering race, even if we are conceived

From the ashes of our deceased.

i

In the present, my sister calls. I tell her I’m returning to therapy.

A boy is a boy because he is made of water. I wanted to feel needed,

So I fell in love.

But being in love is the same as being exiled.

i

In an alternate reality, my mother’s addiction does not kill her.

We both know about the taxonomies of grief

In this anti-totalitarian state. Freedom is only valorized

If your captors say so. I sprint to my apartment,

Hysterical with want, and pour freezing bottles of Miguel

Into my bathtub. The amber liquid glistens like starlight.

Or is it diesel? I still smell Yakima on my clothes.

I dive into my best friend and weep with joy.

Or is it urine? My faith is a democracy.

I say a prayer and strike a match.

God listens:

I’m engulfed by flames.

_________________________________

This poem borrows, alters, or references text from the following sources:

“Freedom From Want” by Carlos Bulosan

“Valorizing racial boundaries: Hegemony and conflict in the racialization of Filipino migrant labour in the United States” by Rick Baldoz

“The Tracks of Babylon” and “Mid-Morning for Sheba” by Edith L. Tiempo

after Noreen Ocampo

Let’s kill the streetlights.

Tonight, you’re the only guide

I need. You, who shrieks habibi

Every Thursday afternoon. You,

With the apple sauce in your hair.

Brooklyn is sweeter thanks to you.

Tonight, we meet our darling who

Took his pen and drew to life the stars.

We board the Q train without

Any destination in mind.

Venus, bless our trajectory.

Tonight, we want nothing but Mustafa,

Idrees, the gay bar, seventeen trees,

Your pink body across my face.

Venus, we’re coming for you.

Help us spin laughter out of darkness.

Used to be a fatty. So I slivered myself into nothing. Like almonds. Or moonlight. Then my mom

collapsed in the shower. So the doctors prescribed me meds that blew me up.

Again.

So I became the crazy fatty with a dead mom.

So I moved to New York and lost the weight. But not the motherlessness. That follows you

everywhere. It exists in what do your parents do? and I ♡ MOM mugs and the $15

daffodils off Avenue I.

The word for flower in Tagalog is bulaklak. It shares a prefix with the word bulok, meaning

rotten.

Before raping my city, the IJA decapitated over 100 civilians at Dy-Pac Lumberyard. Their heads

      were dumped in a field less than three miles from the presidential palace, where they later

      blossomed into strawberries in the summertime.

People treat you differently when you’re pretty. But that’s the thing, I’ve been pretending this

whole time.

Josefina’s pregnant now. Accidentally. It’s ironic, given she’s wanted to die since seventh grade.

That makes two of us.

She’s asked me to be ninong. Gender reveal parties at 22, I thought only white missionaries

pulled that trick.

I’m so sorry for leaving you on read. Again. Everything’s so noisy, I can’t escape it. But I miss

you. How’d the body scan go? Are you back to singing?

I work at the college radio station now, thanks to Kaylin. I’m like Papa Jack, except I’m never

on air. It’s the same with therapy, I have so much to say but never the right words.

We ambush the liquor store during Passover. Get handsy with strangers in Bushwick. This girl’s

elevator opens directly into her living room. Wtf. But these aren’t my real friends. It’s the

same with mom, I’m never here anymore.

I spent years chasing her shadow, even before the aneurysm.

America is realer than I am. Her troops incinerated my city while defending us from Imperial

forces. They later established permanent military posts on these very same flower beds,

made fertile with the ashes of our irretrievable history.

Is there any evidence we were even here?

Filipinos are gorgeous, so by default we are transient. The word for brief in Tagalog is saglit. It

shares a suffix with the word ulit, meaning repeat.

My people are a recurring brevity.

I can’t hear you, I’m sorry. I saw my shrink after ghosting her two years ago. I’m back on my

happy pills, that’s what’s up.

Call me back. Please. I miss your voice, even if it’s scratchy.

A week before Mother’s Day, Kaylin takes me to Target. I’m hungering for things which no

name exists, and I’m staring at her the way pregnant bellies stare at bayonets, but I need

to choke the feeling down. There’s so much I want to tell her — my family inebriation

and the significance of World Thyroid Day, how a city on the equator can still appear as

white as snow.

But then I see the greeting cards, and she’s lost me.

So I’m lying in bed and seeing stars. Watching the shadow of my chest stutter and fall.

Like children screaming in laughter, tripping before exploding into strawberries.

     *Note: This poem first appeared in Tinderbox Poetry Journal