Not That Kind of Filipino

“Can legacy exist in shorthand?” –Michelle Penaloza

Filipinx nicknames, like the language,
hopscotch from tongue to tooth to roof
in my mouth: Mog, Dino, Bri, Jojo, June.

I never had one. The closest I got was
Chris instead of Christian, which worked
because we are Catholic, and asking

an eight-year-old the difference
is never funny. But oh how I longed
for one, or at least to share something

with my manoy besides a last name.
To be one of them, I would take
their shared middle name,

their mother’s maiden name, Flores,
even if it didn’t make sense;
it’d beat out the Whiteness and loneliness

embedded in what I was given: Hanz.
Oh how I wanted a sing-song,
nonsensical nickname, one that was short

for nothing and from an experience
so inside, it internalized.

Liverwurst on White Bread

Don’t knife the pâté down, just finger-
press from the center out, heavy enough
to spread the paste, light enough to keep
the bread together.

When extra-value menus became easier
than balancing white bread and liverwurst,
we stopped eating those sandwiches, stopped
using a light touch to avoid feeling smooth

and grainy processed meat, but Brown Dad
kept a tube of it in the door of the fridge,
letting it age there, letting it expand toward its
expiration date. We were all still cheap,

and I get nervous around uneaten food,
so I wonder why, every few months,
he’d buy a new tube. Was it like hanging
a picture or flag of your home country,

reminding you of your past hungers
and the culture that made you? Or was it
like a hard-earned diploma, showing proof
of success and how your children don’t have
the same kind of tongues?

It Is Better Twice Removed

I love to hear stories about elders
using sharp tongues to put youth
in place, but I don’t want to see
the stabbing and be collaterally cut
or to be the target of the blade
like the time Tutu gasped from her
oxygen mask for enough air to tell me:
“don’t make fun” of Nani while wrapping
presents. No, instead, I love hearing
Brown Cousin share her stories
about Tutu catching her with some truth,
like those times she caught her granddaughter
ditching school only to bring her home
or saying: “you look like a slut”
when trying on new identities.
If iron sharpens iron, an elder’s tongue
cuts because it has been cut.
Sometimes they cut in return
to teach and sometimes they cut
to protect and sometimes they cut
because the part of the tongue,
where the right words should be,
was amputated when no one
would listen or want the responsibility
of a child’s child.

Boohoo

“the laughter of a drunken lord hid the sob of a silken whore” –Langston Hughes

This is what I’m afraid of
as I buy a second house
while keeping the first

this is what I’m afraid of
earning more money than
I feel I deserve

this is what I’m afraid of
as I buy for ornament
rather than just function

this is what I’m afraid of
trying to pass through
the eye of a needle

this is what I’m afraid of:
my laughter and joy
are just masks

Call It Shrove or Fat Tuesday

but I use Pancake Day, and am focused on fluffiness
with a child’s gleeful dedication, all tongue-tipped
and willfully ignorant of knowledge gaps as I mix
instant pancake powder with the other ingredients
while imagining a breeze lightly kissing the steam
emanating from golden brown deliciousness. I swear
I will hear a little sizzle when the room temperature

syrup touches that soft but firm cakey surface.
But Pancake Day is not immune from decision fatigue,
and I am not versed in pancake making–this makes twice
now–but I am so insistent that butter is needed, I lay it
first, two tablespoons as if that’s how I always do it
in the new rice pot because I don’t want to stand
in front of the stove flipping jacks for one.

As I wait the forty-five minute cook time, I wonder if
God will forgive me for the slow suicides I commit daily,
for every end of week Chinese food celebration—
not the classy kind like Panda, no, I’m talking sketchy
Donut Star because nothing says cuisine like
a donut/Chinese spot—for every Saturday pizza
and Sunday hot chicken, for every Fat Tuesday pancake

with a side of chicken nuggets. Fat is my religion.
In the beginning the Creator said the Word, and the Word
expanded into the void with its force. How else can you
worship this kind of God other than stockpiling energy
on the cellular level, every French fry is the body,
every soda is the blood, and every part of you expands
out-word, trying to follow your creator’s image?

Fat is how I worship, and this interminable pancake waiting
is like a meditation on holiness. Sanctity in suffering only
invites suffering, so says my laboring heart. Adopting a parent’s
belief means your heaven will always be a second hand
hand me down, thus spoke a choked aorta. Hope resides
in reincarnation as a more needed cog.

Mary Had a Little Lamb bleats from the rice pot, signaling
the pancake is done. I open the lid and see some deformed
creature, yellow like a pancake and butter, but oily.
The weight of the butter sunk the structure in the center.
I flip it over onto a plate to reveal, a fragment of the Word,
a beautiful golden-brown dome, thick and round,
hiding the imperfections within and beneath.

 

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  • Christian Hanz Lozada aspires to be like a cat, a creature that doesn’t care about the subtleties of others and who will, given time and circumstance, eat their owner. He wrote the poetry collection He’s a Color, Until He’s Not. His Pushcart Prize nominated poetry has appeared in numerous journals. Christian has featured at the Autry Museum and Beyond Baroque. He lives in San Pedro, CA and uses his MFA to teach his neighbors and their kids at Los Angeles Harbor College.