so long yangon

crumbling buildings and sewers
green things choke the city from all directions
every rooftop is full of spiders
every sewer with rats
every alley with stray dogs

the wealthy grow paler and fatter by the minute (their husks permeated with the stench of air-conditioned hypermalls and the skin-care products within) while the poor remain skeletal and dark, the ridges of their bowed spines visible out the top of grimy tank tops as they stand like scarecrows around the trashfire behind the abandoned truck frame

white cabs pack the streets between the public buses (secondhand imports from every country that makes buses) all vying for space, the drivers playing lane chicken while hopped up on stimulants

soon i'll be gone
but the city will still be standing here, if only because they will keep building it, even as the monsoon rains and the dust and the jungle beat it down

---

from the plane window at night
i can see the twinkling of the lights as the trees pass over them
rice paddies give way to ocean, and eventually to corn fields

at home, it's Fall
i grow a beard and wear flannel
the highways are massive, the trucks the size of battleships
billboards and strip malls fester on the endless rolling hills
the countryside is eerily silent
no chanting or EDM blasting from speakers down the flooded streets
no ants or spiders or beetles or mosquitos or mushrooms growing in my bathroom
no dogs howling
no cat fights or screaming children
no bells twinkling from the pagoda top

but weirdest of all, it's not hot

so long Yangon
i'm back in the land of parking lots