How Do You Love a Gentrified City

By Jason Bayani

From Volume 7 (2018)

One of these days the city will have us by the fingers,

right at the chuff of our lip; our hands too stubborn

to ask for mercy. When my father cries out in pain

the sound comes at a curve. Aray. At home, memory

is a whip, and not the hammer crashing.  

This is how I know the difference 

between who is hurting me

and when I am only hurting myself.

I am afraid all of the time that this city will forget me.

Or punish me when it notices I’ve been standing around

a little too long. It doesn’t take courage to get through

most days, just forgetting. I know what it’s like 

to be invisible. I know that, sometimes, 

it’s safer that way.

This dream of mine isn’t a tunnel, but a pinhole

and inside is a small mountain that is only small

inside of here. I keep something enormous

in the world. Something so big. 

Watch me now.

Watch me fit it all 

onto the whorl of my thumb.

Maybe tomorrow they’ll throw the tear gas into the street

and we will teach them how to grieve properly. 

Maybe we’ll stop waiting for the city to love us 

the way we love it. Sometimes I punch the walls 

because I need to remember 

what my voice sounds like 

when I’m honest.

All these streets look like they exist in someone else’s memory. 

I was born here while they were evicting the last residents

from the I-Hotel. Me, who tethered my parents to America. 

I always come back. I’m always told there isn’t a place.

I always say there will be one. This is the city where I found myself.

Where I’ve been punched in the face. Where I’ve been punched 

in the face, again. Where I was kicked once in the face.

Where I lost my virginity. Where I fall in love, all of the time. 

I don’t own it. I don’t run this town. All my best stories

live here. They get told over good food

or whiskey in a loud bar. We deserve 

a place here. We should be written 

on the walls. 

This memory of mine comes at a whip.

My skin breaks at the bend. It snaps

and I’m awake in a warm bed. It snaps

and I’m screaming loud enough

to be pulled from erasure.