the storybooks never prepared you
for someone like me.
i am neither knight nor maiden
but i can try to be both,
can try to drape myself in
armor while i wait for you  
to rescue me.
you’re digging through me for
your hero and your beacon
but all you’ll find is questions
and contradictions; a game of
mix-and-match between
what’s pounding in my head
and coursing through my body;
a constant war between
what i need and what i’m given
and baby, this is no man’s land.
watch where you step.

i’m trying to paint you
a picture.
your hair is draping onto
my chest and scattering
eternities over all my
drawbacks and i’m
wishing they would soak
into me and leave me
tethered. i’m wondering if
you see mountains in me
the way i see moonlight
in you or if i’m still
taking you in from
sea level and i’m realizing
that your glow will light
my alleyways home
no matter where i am.
stay suspended with me
for a little while longer -
gravity seems to have
lost his way to us.

a jazz club in new orleans,
late evening.
the girl who grinned at me from
behind the bassist has
oysters on her breath and
hints of my lipstick still smeared
around her neck,
but i won’t tell her.
i’ll let her forget me like
she forgets the rest of them,
then notice the shy little
smudges from the other side
of her vanity and wish that
her familiar bourbon street boys
knew how to let their fingertips
slide down her spine the way
mine did.
the timing’s got nothing to
do with it. my ghost is lingering
on the skin of anyone who has
ever tested (swam in, drowned
in) these waters.
they’re playing “bye bye blackbird"
and she’s forgetting already.
i’m letting her. the remembering
comes once i’m lost at
sea.

she said i only love the
enticing parts of people,
the same way i highlight
my favorite lines in books
so i’ll have something to
focus on when i decide
to blow the dust off their
spines.
you’re missing everything
and you know it and
you don’t care,
she said.
you’re missing the real
parts. you’re cheating people
out of themselves.

even then, i wanted to
quote her.

i met a man in a church
outside of manila
who asked how i could stand
living in a country so cold.
amerika, he said,
felt wrong to me.
he asked if it was
cold still.
if it still felt like the land
wanted to stick *******
down its throat and throw me up
and up and away. and gone.

not the land. i wanted to say
not the land but this dress, ginoo,
this body and this name
and what you’ve gotta understand
is that there is no flight to someplace
warmer when the cold is etched
into your chromosomes.

but the only words i could
speak in his tongue
were yes, it’s cold,
yes.

it goes like this,
i said.
the singer finds the quiet one.
they run through sprinklers and
hold their breath under tunnels
and roll the windows down when
their favorite songs come on.
they drink midnight coffee
at diners meant for the old
and alone, and make pictures
across the table with packets
of sugar. together they decide
that the best word is petrichor,
the smell of dirt after it rains,
and when the lights come on
at christmastime they sit in
the trees and watch greens
and reds throw patterns
across their skin.
all of it is perfect
and none of it makes sense.

you said but what about
the singer? you said
what about her songs?

"without _, neither love
nor lovers can survive."
the answer was money,
but i think it should be
the wide-eyed gasps
that come right after
stay-here-forever kisses,
or the foggy half-second
of sprinting through a sun-
drenched forest in between
waking up and realizing
i’m in your arms.
the bills and coins can
sprout wings and fly away —
there’s no such thing as homeless
as long as you’re around.