I’m so homesick. I miss the sound of the language, the feel of it…I miss the adventure, the beauty, the kindness, the presence of belonging. I miss long city walks at night, when the skyscrapers could be seen for miles and throw lights on the pavement. I miss the subway, the simplicity of walking from one place to another and watching the city whip past me as I stand, humming quietly as the rail tracks bump underneath my feet. I miss the feel of the language reverberate on my tongue and hear it chiming in my ears. I miss the generosity and rich culture. I miss the humility and simplicity; the ambition and indisputable threshold for righteousness. I miss the strength, the willingness of an ear, patience of an oak tree and the composure of respect. I miss the jagged horizons of mountains loom with calming familiarity with spectacular array of greens; and I miss the way the sky flower into a spectacular shade of pink at the break of dawn, speckled with yellow and deep orange. I miss gazing at the ocean, admiring the restlessness and salty wilderness I find inexplicable. I haven’t seen the sea in over a year…I used to see it almost everyday. I miss the delicacies, the delicious combination of rice, fish, vegetables, and more. I miss the mesmerizing subtleties in the culture, in the system and way of life which proves to be far from perfect, yet which is one I belong in. I miss Japan…Tokyo, Yokohama, Iwakuni, Aomori, Hokkaido, everywhere. I miss my home.

If I was a king of Asia I would give you all the gold there is
But I'm not even prince of Persia, all I have is love and dreams
Let me show you land of legends, land of honeymoon and rising sun
I am not as rich as Ali Baba, but I promise we'll be having fun

I'll take you to Bali the gem of Java Sea
Then we'll go on to safari a little south of Abu Dhabi
I'll take you to Maldives to swim in coral reefs
We'll enjoy the sweet papaya on the islands of Pattaya

I'll show you lake Baikal, Tibet and Taj Mahal
We'll see Macao, Yokohama, Hanoi, Jeddah, Jaipur, Jakarta
I'll take you to Dubai, Dushanbe and Mumbai
We'll spend some starry nights in yurts near the city of Yakutsk

I’ll take you to Tashkent where melons got their scent
We will taste all sorts of apples in the city of Almaty
I’ll take you to Beirut we'll go nuts on dried fruits
And the coffee with vanilla we can try it in Manilla

I'll take you to Kashgar to shop at old bazaar
Then we'll fly a magic carpet to the markets of Qatar
We'll see ruins of Karakorum the old capital of Moguls
Then we'll go to Kathmandu and then Karachi and Kabul

We'll discover caves with treasures, make three wishes all at once
All at once will turn to a fairy tale, like in one and thousand nights
Let me show you feast of colors, take you cross the dunes in caravans
Even if I don't look like Alladin, I sure know a thing about romance

I'll take you to Taipei to see its lovely bay
We will sip on Coca Cola on the silky sands of Goa
I'll take you to Shanghai where towers touch the sky
And the best of architecture we will see in precious Petra

We'll go to Ashgabat, Bishkek, Busan, Baghdad
We will see Great Wall of China and Cambodian Angkor Wat
We'll see the Everest, mount Fuji, Gobi Desert
And it's certainly my pleasure to take you all around Asia!

I did not want to write a poem titled obituary because I was worried that it would become about you. I did not want to read a poem about you out loud because I did not want anything that I wrote for you to fly away from me like you could have flown away from me, but this poem isn’t about you anymore, it’s about me. This poem is about everything I could have written my own obituary about. I was made out of the kind of smiles that show your teeth and I was always made out of the kind of skin that nobody thought they were going to need to turn into metaphors. and my scars are as pink and white as anyone else’s scars, my bruises don’t look like flowers, they look like tiny blood vessels under my skin have burst. I do not want my obituary to say that I was a valued member of a community I did not feel safe in, I wrote this poem as I dissolved in a hotel room in yokohama, I wrote my obituary once on a bus ride home from school, I wrote a suicide note on the back of a US history assignment that I never turned in, I write my own obituary once a month, sometimes once a week. I am not broken. I am not sad, not shattered. I am building an altar inside of bones that don’t usually have poems written about them. I wrote down all the words I couldn’t pronounce without breathing, and I wrote it in ink but it may as well have been blood.

Un hombre dijo:
-El momento más grave de mi vida estuvo en la batalla del Marne cuando fui herido en el pecho.
Otro hombre dijo:
-El momento más grave de mi vida, ocurrió en un maremoto de Yokohama, del cual salvé milagrosamente, refugiado bajo el alero de una tienda de lacas.
Y otro hombre dijo:
-El momento más grave de mi vida acontece cuando duermo de día.
Y otro dijo:
-El momento más grave de mi vida ha estado en mi mayor soledad.
Y otro dijo:
-El momento más grave de mi vida fue mi prisión en una cárcel del Perú.
Y otro dijo:
-El momento más grave de mi vida es el haber sorprendido de perfil a mi padre.
Y el ultimo hombre dijo:
-El momento más grave de mi vida no ha llegado todavía.

Christmas 1968

the whole hospital hurt.
my bed hugged a corner
and the ward ached
away from me.
endlessly away.

I remember Nurse Merz,
who saved my leg,
and Fender,
who lost his.
mine was a small world.

we had clean sheets.
no one wanted to **** us
at night.
it was Christmas.

after rounds,
the medics
brought us shots of whiskey
in dosage cups.

far away to the south,
the hills
were swallowing people up.

I almost slept
without dreaming.

                              
                             (106th. Army Evacuation Hospital
                              Kishine Barracks
                              Yokohama, Japan)

A single day contained so many Journeys and the Stories
as if they were meant to meet.

And Baltimore,
you were the humble host
of all the Reunions.

Belgium,
Filling our stomachs and the time apart
Memories came to life and we smiled — Together

Sydney,
Talking to random seagulls between our conversations
I found a feather given by a fearsome friend

Geneva,
Learning how to pronounce a foreign word— Affogato
I imagined this is how life should taste

Yokohama,
Making fun of the sushi places hidden in the brick walls
My heart secretly traveled back home

Istanbul,
Discovering the colorful lamps
I thanked for kindnesses sent from different directions

Unexpectedly,
All the journeys took us back to the 5th grade,
picking up our favorites at a candy shop
— and I promised never to follow any strangers!

Baltimore,
You’ve taught me how it feels to grow up.
not being somebody else,
but sowing seeds in our moments,
good days and bad days,
— just like we gave a name and fell in Love
with every single corner of the Town.

Baltimore,
Let’s do it again.

It was summer but it was pouring rain for 2 days the weather was very windy
& chill to the bones &, anyway, it’s too warm out for polar bears
I think that's like a metaphor for something
There are no beautiful surfaces without a terrible depth by Nietzsche
I didn't know why this quote kept playing in my head when I was exploring around
little streets in Yokohama but it reminded me of someone
Someone I never met.

Was it a good time? Yes. I wanna go back take me back
To go out to the shops, the same as seeing the art work
The people there, are extraordinary, interested in me what is expressed,
I wanted to spend my life in order to continue to touch it.

The same feeling even when you are in what, a forest
I want to watch with my whole body & soul. Every moment
Good for the viewer. Not compared to anything & also
Because after all the ****** thing that can be perceived in comparison.

Because the people there is a memory, & because
it is equal to words & memories,
But even more difficult. Reset as much as possible,
always looking at the zero of the eye
I trust Japan's tap water more than I trust people, I said -
as I drink it from a glass.
Why is everyone keep asking me so many ******* questions?
Let me do whatever the hell I want whenever the hell I want
You're torturing me.

your skin is the colour of yokohama honey

and you look at me with eyes as amber as liquid luck could be

your lips melt against mine like parfaits in santa monica summer

you look good

and i bet you taste just as good too