we both admit to still having our pictures on our phones
the one where you shredded yourself into pieces,
and tossed them into the air,
telling me to catch you
but I lay on the ground--
waiting for you to reach me

Birthday cards, I keep stacked that I’ve made
copies near the entrances to my window—
the virtue of having a friend
bitterest of ways, I am daffodils, saltwater.
mason jars of onions, old peanut butter we save
singing together, little notes of you
pieces, bit by bit— scatter into summer

Do you still play vinyls
rolled up Japanese jeans
you smelled of crushed hibiscus
roads after a thunder, pine needles burst
with the sky-blue beetle
zooming, trampling with blank ink
with white polka-dots,
how to hide a lesbian body with the carpet
rolled up tossed into the closet
it was the day you taught me how to samba
it was a windy day cracking open the side windows
a tiny bit, just enough to lick your fingers
how you breathe with waiting, how you wait until have to breathe
It was storming outside, it was the first time I had horchata.
and the sunlight broke drying the ground,
how you appear - gently, into someone's heart

I am, will always be, behind your back
That, I will, in the worst time of your life,
Try to be the best part of it, that, you are, to me,
The best thing about here, that, no matter,
How hard, trying, how much it is
I will, spot you, walking across the street.
Running towards, my life like a shelter,
That you are, dumb as ****, with me, at this bar,
At Starbucks with playing cards, at parks, through heavy winters,
Without money, for gas, together above, my house, on the roof,
throwing firecrackers on the driveway, in the neighborhood,
stealing golf ***** from country clubs
you are, a buzz, dank with life, tall as you could be
that so many things have died in my life—
I am happy you haven’t. I am happy—
you are here.

Someone always left the canoe sled up on the suburban hill
where my parents lived in Lancaster
when my father was still alive
the hot button of bronze rusted park bench water fountains
mustard grime on fujianeze chemical roads,
factory capes bustling out diet coke smoke plumes
over ornate Qing green shrines, the sky congested
congregates in the priest’s hands
passing out grilled flatbread stained with silver coins
on the shivering blades of velvet grass up top to khaki canals
behind the town where empty six-pack rings swim down
to where the homeless sleep
and feed the water with blistered feet—
but underneath a vale of Caspian light
lanterns red as congealed hearts
the smell of fireworks overtakes gas
and for one night it is the country
my parents remember

In the summer,
we run around the house
open all the windows
have the wind sing through our rooms—
that you are a wind chime—
and —
when I pass through you
it is my favorite song

you have amnesia
except the painful parts
where I’m a house hiding dynamite
you don’t want me to open up
that,
not an elevator or staircase, your mother’s hands,
your father lies—
I won’t let you down

“the hardest thing is to come back—” he says

no,
the hardest thing is to stay.