Filipina American, homegrown in the Bay Area where the clouds are made of steam from rice cookers, and thunder from the claps of tsinelas 
As I was growing up my tongue learned to split itself into two- one asked for you to pass the sinigang, and the other for the French fries 
Eventually they molded themselves into one, and I’m known now to visit mama’s house on Sunday and say “Kuya, you’re hella bastos!” 
My ears were never confused and my mind never missed a beat when I switched codes, switched identities
I went back and forth between butterfly sleeves and denim jeans 
But soon enough people started to ask me what I “was” - as in, “What kind of Asian are you?” Well, let me tell you what kind of Asian I am

My family has ancestral roots all the way from New Zealand, but because ancient people of Oceania were such good navigators, I stand before you today as full Filipina 
My brown skin, brown eyes, and black hair all start to feel heavy whenever someone asks me what kind of Asian I am 
As if I’m supposed to answer that my almond eyes don’t make me see math problems better than you and my brown hands still hold the steering wheel the same way you do
In my blood runs the bravery of generations that struggled throughout hundreds of years of different colonizations- people want to boil me down into a combination of “Spanish and Chinese” because it’s easier for them
Well I’m tired of people trying to dissect my heritage in ways that are only convenient to them

I’m the kind of Asian that is fluent in my parents’ native tongue because every time I speak it, the words wrap around me in the air and form roots connecting me to an archipelago in Southeast Asia 
I’m the kind of Asian that called white people “Regulars” in kindergarten because somehow I had gotten the sense that people like me were never part of the majority- it sounds kinda funny but looking back, I remember wondering why no one on TV ever looked like me, why I could never find girls like me in the magazines
I’m the kind of Asian that doesn’t feel Filipino “enough” even though I speak the language fluently and spent the majority of my life studying the movements and dance of the people that came before me 
I’m the kind of Asian who is only just now barely being recognized in the media- you’d think our faces would look more familiar, I mean, we used to be a colony of America 
I’m the kind of Asian whose only paragraph in school textbooks is the one about Magellan because apparently the Philippine American war isn’t really worth a mention 
I’m the kind of Asian forced to do my own research on our history because my school never made it a priority to teach its majority of Asian students about their cultures 
I’m the kind of Asian who is tired of sitting in silence, watching our pasts get erased and replaced with stereotypes and postcards and tourism 
I’m the kind of Asian that wants my nieces and nephews to value their skin, their eyes, their traditions, their languages, and their culture because there are eraser marks all over our history books- there are eraser marks all over us

We are not your first draft of a colonial essay you wish you could rewrite
We are an unending novel written in blood, sweat, and tears
We are a symphony of oral traditions, passing down values and ideals every time we mano to our elders
So, what kind of Asian am I?

Filipina American, born and raised in the Bay with a heartbeat that reaches oceans away 
Brown skin, brown eyes, black hair, and a tongue that is quick to change its nature whenever it needs to 
You can still catch me at mama’s house on Sundays, calling out to my nephews “Nanong, kain na!” and still telling my Kuya he’s being “hella bastos”
Taglish slips off of my tongue like second nature- I form sentences around my bloodline, wrapping English words around my butterfly sleeves because that’s where I always keep my heart

My heart has written the same story over and over again

It beats in Morse code, pumping out narratives clear as day

I still feel your name in my chest cavity

I'm rapidly extracting every ounce of you left within me

Struggling to wear your false promises on my sleeve

I'm stained red with embarrassment- it makes its way to my cheeks

I feel the heat creep up inside me- I want to scream

How could you do this to me?

You begged and pleaded, let out a list of reasons

At the gates of my vulnerability

They swung open in naïveté

I reserved all judgements, let you get to know the best of me

Let you tighten your grip only to watch you suddenly let go of me

I instinctively reached out for your hand and you turned your back to me

Because you could no longer bear the weight of accountability

My heart speaks to me in Morse code

Urgently tapping out an SOS in the form of panic attacks

I struggle to regain composure and try to relax

I inhale whatever is left of my pride

I don't bother to get down on my knees and scoop up the last of our memories

I delete phone conversations and call logs

Time stamped to remind me how much was wasted-

Let's face it

You will never find anything close to a replacement

I'm complacent

I'm not letting you turn me into your twisted permanent vacation

He says I don’t say his name the same way anymore 
I say it, but it doesn’t sound like before 
Like when it used to drip off my tongue like honey 
Like when I could count all his syllables like money-
His nickname was worth it to me

I used to call his name out in the middle of the night because I knew he’d answer
Now I mumble it into the phone like I couldn’t get it out any faster 
Like the word itself leaves a bitter taste 
One I can’t wash down with any other chaser
I’m certain he knows now that I hate that flavor 
It lingers in the air as if I’d blown out vapor 
I remember the days I used to savor 
The ease of his name on my tongue- no labor

Nowadays his name falls out of my mouth like a landslide
Like a million rocks are hurtling toward me and I’ve got nowhere to hide
It hits me like a truck skidding in the rain
While I’m clutching the wheel and he’s hitting the brakes
I want to wipe his name off my lips- I want it to be erased

It tastes like gasoline and alcohol and every letter is the flick of a lighter 
I try to say it softly but the flames burn brighter
You see his name tastes like the way everything was supposed to be 
But now all I feel are the shards of glass from the big picture he had proposed to me 
Lesson learned, lesson gained- his name was never meant for me


So you can’t say it was love that was lost- it was always just love that could never remain with me

This is my first poem about you

My first "I wish I knew how to put the brakes on loving you"

My first "I know I'm falling and I wish that wasn't true"

My first "I wish I didn't feel like such a fool"

You see, we are the definition of "Right person, wrong time"

So I'm writing you into these lines because my English teachers always told me

My writing would always remain

I wish I could say the same

About us, about you and me

Together for eternity

You said that you would marry me

But I know that this is all just a cover

I can see that we're going under

We're a ticking time bomb with just a few seconds left

Tick, tick, tick- under too much stress

We knew that this was never meant to last

But I didn't realize I could fall so fast

Tripping over my words with you on my mind

I look in your eyes and know I'm running out of time

My chest aches every time you hold me

Because I know that I could never be your only

I'm always the option, never the priority

Forgotten, the smallest of minorities

I'm not even a fraction of your heart

You say you're here for me, but we feel so far apart

I wish I never let you in

I wish I could stop writing you into existence

Into my narrative, into the words that will go down in my history

Into this story of "Right place, worst time"

Into these last few lines

I feel my heart beat faster whenever I hear your laughter

It breaks when you say we can never be more than this

It shatters when your kiss sets me on fire but I know that on your ladder of priorities

I could never climb any higher

In your chest of emotions you have nothing to fold away for me

You keep your feelings locked far away from me

You're afraid to be a part of me

I understand-

Even I ruin the best of me

So I write you into the only good thing about me

Into the only honest part about me

Into the most vulnerable areas of my mind

I let you become the cramp in my wrist instead of the tightness in my chest

You're the metaphor I come up with when I think I have nothing left

You're the stanza that hurts me the most but always sounds the best

You're the rhyme scheme I keep coming back to

The same narrative that I've gone through

The one I've so closely come to know

I know how this ends, I'm already bracing for the blow

And still I let you in when I really should be letting go

-LRD

I don't have the heart to tell you

That you're breaking mine

That you're taking mine

That everything you do

Just stays on my mind

Like all the time

How do you take your heart back

From somebody who never truly wanted it in the first place?

Last night you held my heart in your hands and accidentally let it fall to the floor

But my heart has always been made of glass and so it shattered when you let go

Still I reached down to clean the mess, swept the floor, and tucked all of my shards away

Your voice was cold with a hint of apology

"I wish we met at a different time"

That's what they all say to me

I'm either too early or too late

And I wish that wasn't something I had to apologize for

I still do

I'm sorry

My rhyme scheme still sounds like you

I wish I knew

How to erase your face

From the lines I make

Every metaphor sounds like your laugh

Every turn just takes me back

I write stanzas that look like the peaks of your face

The outline of your nose

The curve of your lips

I wish I could edit everything to stop all this

I don't want to see myself create you again out of nothing-

But I guess it makes sense because that's exactly how We happened

It happens.

Threw up twice today just to prove to myself I wasn't empty inside

My best friend won't stop judging me and I've got issues at night

I haven't slept without nightmares in over a week

I'm feeling dizzy and weak

Sometimes I think if I could just weep

This bitterness could finally leave my soul

And I could finally feel at peace alone

I feel sold out

Standing in front of a big crowd

And all of them asking for more

They need me to be bubbly, to be pretty, to be their little whore

I can't find myself- I don't know who I am anymore

I tell myself that better days are coming but I don't even want anymore

The chemicals in my brain tell me I'm not same

I feel like I'm insane

Just going in the same

Circles- round and round my problems

Without any way to solve them

I can't breathe right when I'm looked in the eye

I get terrified every time I go outside

Because there's a scary part of me that wants to be struck by lightning

Hit by a car

Anything to make people stop saying "Look, you've made it this far"

Yes I know that I'm blessed

Yes I know that I'm lucky

But when you tell me I have nothing to cry for

I wish you could see that my brain is telling me I have everything to die for

That the neurotransmitters in my brain might not be at the same

Balance as yours

Isn't that what balance is for?

I wish I never knew what SSRIs were for