Tell me I can't, no, or you'll love me more and I'll do it. My people come from what is often referred to by banks as LDC’ s (least developed countries),little brown tropical countries, drenched with religious fanatics, stalks of sugar like magic wands picked for five cents an hour sold for three dollars a box. My people come from generational recycled 40 oz. bottles of beer and shit and cigarettes smoked backwards (the lit end in your mouth), and cassava, and ube, pickled duck fetus’, and piss, and mah jong, gambling lots of gambling and child sex workers boys and girls. Untold numbers of pretty pretty boys. My people are light bulb eaters, bed-of-nail walkers, fire-eaters, every day is a circus in their jungles, alive with naked intent. By the time we got here we would be happy at any swap meet, all of us hollowed out like empty mango shells. My people rested naked sandwiches on the arms of chairs, and always had an open saucer with half melted butter, a block of Velveeta cheese in the freezer, an open rice cooker. Every kitchen with brown and white diamond checkered floors lined with ants, and every top drawer with little boxes of broken chalk to try to fight the ants and roaches, my people have big rubber fly swatters, and eat with their teeth floating in glasses of water at the dinner table. I say all of this to let you know that the only thing that saved me was words and books and I hope to return the favor. That’s why I need to see my words in print in your journal.