here, a chance to make up for lost time. here’s to the eighteenth birthdays and the graduations we never got; though we were separated by oceans our losses learned how to swim. so i write for you an arrival day where i meet you at the international arrivals terminal. as we ride north to the life i’ve built from leaving, our voices crystallize to form home. outside, there is snow. you ask me how i survive winter and i tell you i learned to conjure up warmth. i dared to imagine a christmas with all my closest ones and now we are here. i spoke it into existence. i breathed into being the bridging of our worlds. you could say i manifested it. we arrive at my place. my parents greet you and me, and together we eat our way through hours of kwento. you and wendii and i fall asleep in my room that night, ready to wake up and explore the other side of the world.