i wsh there were something about you i could grasp, miami, amigo viejo,

because really, you’re not that old or young or anything except what you give us, and still, I have demanded so much of you
you never give, but you find a shortcut around the alleys and the courts and the houses that I would love to afford but could never live and make a home in  

because we’re always in the sun and we beg you to stop burning and making everything around me burn, scald Irritable

and under the rain, the rain
we beg you to let go, to stop, because falling just isn’t something that you’re good at and because you make the pulse of your asphalt so very very slow and no one wants to have anything to do with you

so hide. we hide, 
under the shelter of the bus stops and  the abuela’s umbrella

except she’s not really an abuela, just the lady that gives me meaningfully dirty looks and has unreasonably high expectations of the young man sitting down on the seat that “es mio, carajo!” in the old roach-infested bus

and if she is an abuela, she would never want me to tell - so she cakes on the cake and the powders, the lined pigments around her lips and to her roots, she applies dye

because she wants to hide her roots, but still, a part of her never dies

and nor do you, Miami, 

ansyen zanmi, except you’re not really that “ansyen”

because there is nothing established about you

except, maybe, the eleventh street diner and if we’re lucky 
and willing to look that far back,
Jerry’s deli, and that one torn up courthouse in Downtown
and if we’re willing to look at the kids decked out in black
Churchill’s - don’t worry, Winston’s judging all of you.

and I would never find a place to give these words to you, true, 
Miami, you old young excuse for a cultural ring
because
you would never give me a home among your houses, 
and there would never be a public phone to hear ring and even if I called
and you answered, Miami, 
you could never lend me your ear, only hand me the megaphone
and hope to have another scream mixed into your 
 sound

and still, thank you 
because once you make it here and you have something to say
you can say anything
anywhere
 to anyone, 
and survive.  

thank you, for not having an identity
because we can make of you what we want and need

though the hoops you’ve made us jump through know that this hellish sand and the   angelic streets 
never truly set us free. 

I spill my guts about the break up to a virtual stranger over dim sum. I’m talking a lot lately to fill a void — to myself, to friends, to people I don’t even know. I’m over-sharing. I call my best friend but he is away and might be annoyed at me and it’s starting to feel like neither of us are saying what we want to say, just mashing words together to make sure we don’t say what we’re thinking, corking our throats, ignoring the pauses.

It’s depressing the sh-t out of me.

Sometimes I think: Who really knows each other?

I think: All you can do is just be something to some people for some time. You can’t hold on to anything; Someone is so important and then they are nothing.

I think: How could someone mean something and then they’re —poof — gone?

…

I think: Where do the summer people go in the winter?

I think: How do you keep friends?

I think: Something is going to happen. I can feel it. I am thrilled. I am alone. I am terrified.