I am from balikbayan boxes, veiled markers of identity. I am from sunken galleons, misspent fragment of empires. I am from handknotted piña fibers, a cultivar of possibilities. I am from blue and white pottery, ghostly and full of stories. I am from unglazed earthenware, seasoned with intent and fire. I am from balikbayan boxes, movement of tenacity. I am from the heartwood of wounded lign aloes, an unfortunate luxury. I am from Glory of the Sea Cone, prized for its venom and spire. I am from ocean crossings, an arbitrary and seaworthy possibility. I am from repeated prayers and offerings, a Hail Mary pass and nine days to mercy. I am from doomed love stories and ghosts with a grievance, manifesting ire and satire. I am from a precarious bloodline, a balikbayan genealogy. I am from the mother of all fiestas, sanguinary and exhibiting miraculously. I am from broken rosaries, indulgence for blessed and blooded modifiers. I am from possibilities in a family tree that doesn’t end with me. I am from buried treaties north of an archipelago, debris of synchronicity. I am from a chronology of losses and one wedded and wilder soothsayer. I am from balikbayan boxes, veiled markers of identity. I am foreshadowed in good faith, a possibility, empire of sundries.
