garden/Poetry/Lumikha 2023.md

Hey girl,
you remind me
that I have two hearts,
two kasingkasings whose beats sing
for you, for me, for us, for we,
brown girls and brown queers, who rise
like the sun after gentle rains and eastward winds.
Hey girl,
you remind me
of the south plains sky,
stretched wide over the lands,
colonized, where we rebelliously learned
to thrive, to live, to flourish, to give
to all society’s cast aside, all who have lived and died
and will live again on the breath of justice.
Hey girl,
you remind me
that we have high hopes,
manifested destinies and techniques
to achieve all the dreams, at first unimaginable
by our ancestors, by our lovers, by our oppressors, by our detractors,
culturally rich and getting richer, immeasurable
like the grains of rice from the eons harvested over paddies.
Hey girl,
you remind me
that our words are more powerful
than any fist, any sword, any bomb, any gun—
that our hearts beat louder than any boots, drums, or speakers.
You remind me that our spirits fight harder
for love and for liberation, for life and for nation.
Hey girl,
you reminded me
to stay connected even over sea,
to practice my meditations and see the unseen.
You reminded me to fight
until we are all free.

——

This next piece was inspired by kind of a funny moment I had at a restaurant while I was student worker in diversity equity and inclusion at texas tech.

——

i was 23 at buffalo wild wings
she says
are you filipino
i say only half
she says
me too
without skipping a beat she asks
it’s the dad, right?
i’m at a loss
for words, i’m totally
flummoxed, i clutch my chest,
bright orange buffalo sauce staining
my white shirt.
i am mortified
like a ghost, surprised she even saw me.
a karabaw in jeepney headlights,
crossing the road from evergreen forest
to narra tree jungle.

but i don’t tell her about the time my dad and i were driving home from the movie theater, circa 2014, American Sniper, Clint Eastwood film, Bradley Cooper first billing
i’m riding shotgun on the freeway in
our white truck.
he says,
“how come western countries can’t
have borders without being called
racist?”
“i mean, what about all of
us white people?”
but there is no us.
because i am the conspiracy,
i am the mythical replacement that will never be,
i am that feared brown-eyed yellow sun,
so cover your eyes, green like grapes
green like rumors. green like dollar bills.

i don’t tell her about being in the jollibee parking lot in san antonio,
listening to vst, and asin, and cinderella
in a fugue, making my spicy chickenjoy extra spicy using my eyes.
or about craving distance from the crowd
at the filipino student leader retreat,
wondering if this pain in my chest is really kapwa.
i don’t tell her, that sometimes i feel untouchable.
that sometimes all i want
is a hug from mom.
to hear the word
“palangga.”

i don’t tell her that my race, beyond the boundary, feels like a costume
that i wear every morning, a show for other people. that i can’t look back at those
who stare
in the middle of the target or the walmart,
during my classes in college,
on the bus or the sidewalk,
or else i am breaking the fourth wall.
that i am a border given life, not in or out,
existing only in the mind.

i don’t tell her that i’m like okra,
floating slimily in the pinakbet
beloved flavors, reviled in america.
that i live on even in this climate crisis drought
miraculously living through the heat of this life.
that i’m a square peg in a round hole world.

i don’t tell her that i feel like i’m repenting
for a sin i did not commit. an accident to the world. that when the spanish colonized us, they introduced terms like mestiso,
terms drawing comparison to animals,
discounting the humanity of anyone not
of pure european birth.
“mestiso” - mixed - European and indio ancestry.
self and other, human and non human. less human than them, but still more human than others.
halflings, half humans.

i don’t do else but look shocked, then laugh nervously,
at the buffalo wild wings in lubbock texas
where dust blows across the land
like a curse.

but i want to tell her.

and i want to tell her - tell others like us -
that we’re not math, not solvable, like an equation or a problem
not a fraction or divisible.
not mass-produced sandwich cookies, dipped in milk.
not whitewashed, not weak color analogies.

that we are today’s saints, bilocating across oceans.
born anew katipuneros and members of la liga filipina, rightfully beside others in the cause.
donning ten gallon hats and red horses, mounted on the hill before the battle, shouting “makibaka.”
that we - all of us, all our kin Black and Brown - won’t go away with the stroke of a pen on capitol hill, or the closing of the border.
that a knife at my neck or a gun to my head won’t break my composure, my hope, my all.
that we won’t vanish into the moon but shine like the sun, like the rays and stars on the flag we bear.
that every day we still stand, is a win against white supremacy and the settler colonial state
a day won for generations after us
another day we eat the fruit of life
another day we, like Bulosan, let them know who we are
another day we say yes, thank god, thank our ancestors, that still, we rise

i want to tell her.
i want to tell you.
but i’ll show you instead.

——

i went to a community townhall for dfw about a month ago. and while i was there one of the people there came up to me and was telling me about his organization and asking me to reach out to him about volunteering and job opportunities. while we were talking it came up that i speak a few different languages, so suddenly he tells me,
“oh, you should get into the vlogging, there are lots of people who go to the philippines and do vlogging and get lots of followers and make a lot of money. you should be a travel vlogger!”
and as he’s talking i’m thinking “man i can hardly focus during a conversation, or coordinate enough to get a degree let alone run a youtube channel and be a high-output content creator”
but it had me thinking about a side project i do and how a close friend of mine, a very special person to me, and i started our own social media website, to make a place for filipinos and other people of color and queer people to have community without corporate involvement. so this next piece is inspired by that - our desire to create a space that we can share with others: community.

——

welcome to our holographic nation
if you’re hearing this it means you’ve already been naturalized
this place is borderless and stateless,
this place is a window, this place is a song.
here we’re all bridges, over rivers which flow faster than light.
where “kumain ka na ba” is “i love you”
it’s just beyond the riverbend and right within our hearts, liminal space
gather here, liberated ones, beloved multitude

palm tree canopies like mirrors over this glassy gem landscape,
if you hold another hand in it, that’s a gloria
and if you overlap your whole heart with another, that’s kapwa
we built this city with our love, we made the whole world blush
and with great ecstasy, joyfully we shout in unison - our own cry of pugad lawin
because we are the online anito
because we are the voices
because we are

——

that’s all i had planned for you all tonight, so i have just one thing to leave you with, i just want to say that i love being Filipino and i love us so much, and i hope you all do too. if you’re not Filipino i hope you love being you as well. we are all so powerful when we come together as a community, especially to support our local artists and performers and community organizations.

that being said thank you all very much for having me! remember to vote and enjoy the rest of the show!