Mátulain: Lessons From Somewhere Else

There is a weight buried in me that hasn’t been lifted since they raised the minimum fare from one peso and fifty centavos to two decagon pesos.

Mátulain is not just a series focusing on my poetry—instead, it follows my continuing love story with the art. Full disclosure: This is something I wrote on April 2, 2020.

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Lessons From Somewhere Else

Nothing is permanent.

I moved to the United States
even though I always said I wouldn’t.

As a child I loved the idea of being
with my cousins in the land of MTV.
Been here a year. We’re still strangers.

Under the blazing Nevada sun
I walk unafraid. Where I grew up
dirt and humidity and noise snuck into
every corner of your physical being.

There is no escaping anything
in the small neighborhood
I called home. But in Cubao
you used to be able to pretend
that you weren’t in a big city.

In my mother’s father’s house,
a bungalow built with good intentions
and no architectural plans,
we ignored construction drilling
and car horns and motorcycle engines.
We played music and laughed.

We bought custom-made school shoes
at what’s now called Cubao Expo
but I remember it by another name.
I would get on a Fiesta Carnival ride
after ballet class at SM or grocery shopping. 
Now a well-lit hypermart occupies the exact same space.

Some people call this progress
or gentrification, but it is erasure.
The Cubao I knew slipped away
and I learned how to grieve the loss.
And then it spread to our house.
My lolo passed, then lola. My uncle.
City static started to overwhelm me.
By the time dad died I’d moved away.

During my last visit to Cubao
I found it difficult to breathe
unless I looked out at the front yard
where the Kalachuchi tree
that watched over me as a child
still stands to this day.
It was a sweaty, sticky summer day
and I was in next to nothing,
exposed and unable to hide.

There is a weight buried in me
that hasn’t been lifted since
they raised the minimum fare
from one peso and fifty centavos
to two decagon pesos.
It was with me on that final afternoon
When I hugged my siblings
and watched my mother avoid crying.
Maybe in Nevada I will learn to let go,
to step out of my grief—and into my life.

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Photo by David Lusvardi on Unsplash

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