coping mechanism?

When they asked me to leave the orphanage,
I started crying like
whatever home I had ever built
inside my chest
had just been burned alive
and yes I am exhausted
and yes this is typical
and yes I am always
emotional instability

but, Tijuana, you don’t look like much
worth crying over
the way people talk about you
had got me thinking of home
as looking like a war zone
so a week ago
when the airplane landed
I was almost surprised
that you still smelled like things
I had always meant to learn

like poverty is not a noun
like she always has a name
this time, it was Maria.
And Pablo, Natalia, Anna, and Manuel
like love is not red cardstock
heart-shaped valentines
like they teach Americans in elementary school
it is 10 high school students
who otherwise would probably avoid eye contact
like adolescent class systems
actually mean something

it is those 10
learning how to hammer
and lay cement
and the pain of straddling rafter beams
at the exact same time

nowhere else is soccer like an orchestra
nowhere else are packed lunches like
Jesus feeding five thousand
nowhere else can dirt feel so much
like perfume and clean sheets
we built a house
and to the day I die
I will never cease
to almost believe it was a dream

Jordan gave me the keys
Jordan is my older brother’s twin
become God’s voice to remind me
that sometimes when I burn inside
it’s what makes me who I am
Jordan gave me the keys
told me it was my job
to hand them to the family
and I didn’t cry, yet.

I didn’t believe that I would ever have to fly away
just like I don’t believe
that we really built a house

from the roof of the orphanage,
the horizon is the crooked teeth
of a girl who could never win the pageant
because she couldn’t afford dentistry
but she has eyes
like you and I can’t imagine
so thank God I can call her home

the chaos here is being clean after a thunderstorm
the chaos here is not being afraid of the truth
nowhere else are dirt roads
paved with diamond memories
nowhere else have I cried for understanding too much
but everywhere else there is chaos
and everywhere else there are houses to be built
because everyone burns inside
just like me

when they asked me to leave the orphanage
I started crying like
I would never see you again, Tijuana,
maybe I will come back,
but I was wrong
when I thought
that I had not done enough here for now
because Maria has a ceiling
and a real floor
and so do Pablo, Natalia, Anna, and Manuel
I try not to cry too much anymore
I don’t want to extinguish
the firefight someone started in me
because there is chaos everywhere
but like orphans who know your name
sometimes heaven and home
both have to be a little broken
to believe in them.

why dad stopped running.

I don’t come from many places.
My first house was a
quiet box of suburbia
in a gated community
with a fence as high as balance
to keep my family’s sanity
from escaping,
I always got the feeling there
dad was running
from something.
Our neighbors were
adults too rough
to deal with childhood’s
bicycle tracks
and chalk portraits.
We were 45 minutes
from the only two places
I ever went:
church and school.
We were also
3 ½ hours
from the only friend I had,
but please,
I am far from looking for pity,
just qualifying that I too
wish to be entitled
to this breath.
I used to think
there are things
we never grow out of,
and this December planted nothing
but the terrifying idea that I had added
to my fear of the dark
to a terror of a white called snow
so make no mistake:
humanity has a footprint
like a shadow
and this one’s a stamp
too permanent
to hide from,
I wonder if angels see in color,
if they also have felt
their hearts in their throats
when they realized it is possible to fear
both black and white
and for all the words of the bible
I believe to be true
most days heaven
sounds to me
the way I imagine
a refugee camp
sounded to my Nepali friends
who live down Division
nine and a half months ago
before they spoke English,
an escape,
something safer,
but not home.
When I was eleven,
our second house was a skyscraper
it was green then
and smelled like
dad unlearning the
programmed uselessness
his parents once taught him
by their absence,
he rebuilt my room
with my mother’s father
and began to
understand significance
I don’t come from many places.
But I too know
how to spell the word “lost”
I too know exactly
how hollow a chest can be
I was never one to
pretend that I am made
of anything more than
well-placed shots in the dark
call me lucky.
I used to think
there are things
we never grow out of,
and if there are,
humanity is first among them
but if you asked me,
I’d tell you what I learned
the day dad stopped running:
I’m not looking for heaven,
the streetlamp eyes
lining the aisles of this room
assure me
heaven is already here
and we are not angels
but I dare you,
welcome the days
you feel your pulse in your throat,
tattoo fire on your breath,
and breathe the air so warm
the snowmelt is as loud as
the darkness evaporating.
If you’re looking for an escape,
you’ve landed on
the wrong edge of the planet,
but if you’re willing to frame your self-portrait
with bicycle tracks
I’ll bet you everything I’ve ever believed in
that we’ll make the angels jealous
of this light spectrum we have,
called “home.”