We both know it’s easier between two beautiful people

We both know it’s easier when it’s a nice mountain mansion in Italy

          with a shallow pool and a live-in adult-nanny

And we both know it’s easier since it’s summer with ripe-pink peaches

          and nobody interfering    without knocking

“He looks like he never has to work a day in his life,” your friend said

          over Vietnamese coffee, while you are feeling despair, feeling ugly

          (must be the weather’s blue)

“But how do you hate a movie this good?”

Since it’s as if the executive himself has come through the party crowds

          to hand you the rolled-up movie poster:

“The whole thing, Hon, is tailor-made just for you!”

Even the father is very gentle and educated so you’re sure he won’t hit

Admit it: it’s always two hot dudes and neither of them looks like you

See how the camera cleverly pans away since everyone would agree

          a depiction of a late summer night in Italy

          is better than two guys making love to each other

“He’s such a reticent guy,” your friend spoke in defense of the director

“He’s even currently meditating in the west wing of the castle, considering a sequel.”

“Maybe they will have something fat next year,” another friend presumed

“If you put your money on this one.”

“His abs tastes like jelly,” another friend, the pretty one, texted

“If you want to date someone beautiful, be BEAUTIFUL first,” the pretty friend

          texted again

But beauty in fashion is like rotten bread

It poisons your brain and gives you intellectual diarrhea

It drives you to think of death

And remember: this isn’t a story where a fat boy comes to love himself

          and no longer finds          nothing in the mirror

This isn’t a story where a fat boy comes to love every single blue on his body

This isn’t even a story where a Japanese girl is saved from a meteor crash

          despite the similar title:

          instead, it tells how one summer such love

          strikes such boy like a meteor

          (but thank you God, he can still play the piano)

Think about it: it’s most important for the silk-stocking middle-class

          to discover that they too are capable of love

          and also of adapting a best-selling novel

          into a movie

          and a movie

          into a once-in-a-lifetime experience

          since it doesn’t show at your homecountry or homecity or home.

Alone in a theater in Bangkok

          you kept looking at your phone

          waiting for this boy to call back, until

          “Can you please stop with the phone?” said a Korean girl

          three seats away from you

          she later giggled with guilty pleasure so palpable

          when the pretty boy thrust his obscure penis into the ill-fated peach

          (the latter likely grew up with the story of the human gods, their holy teeth

          sinking into him as his soul ascended to fruit-heaven)

If I were you:

          Hey, in spite of everything

          I do love food

          I like my egg sunshine

          my cake full moon

          And I want you to stop peaching with my heart

          “Pass my heart to, ugh, anybody,”

          a late poet that I turned into an imaginary friend once cried

You are worthy of anyone’s time, you know

Some people like your look and personality

Even your mom

And do you remember your lost ID?

See, in the end, you found it

          under the towering dirty laundry

Now you know which country you come from

          which species you belong

          to and even your birth religion

So you know who you are, I guess…?

That means he doesn’t have to call you

          AL

          or any of his names anymore