Americanized

There will come a time,

When you transition from tabo to shower,

From celsius to farenheit

And a mile is more familiar than kilometer.

There will come a time,

When you stop converting peso to dollar

Forget bidet and get used to toilet paper.

Amused at shampoo in sachets

while walking the aisles of Costco.

There will come a time,

Panda Express starts to taste like Chowking

Popeyes fills the void of Chickenjoy

And barbecue meant the sauce

instead of the smoke filled corner of internal organs on a stick at the corner of Aling Ising.

There will come a time,

When checking on childrens grades is critiqued as helicopter parenting

While you reminisce the anxious parents in Viber chat bickering about a homework or test of project given by their son’s teachers.

And letting an infant sleep in his own room is to be praised.

There will come a time,

When your 9 year old is scheduled to do the laundry,

Your teenager drags himsef as he puts the garbage out,

And your toddler running around the house naked becomes okay.

Yet there is definitely a time,

That although your name has its own twang,

You will never get over the steady sorrow

For when you see lights without parol,

Church buildings without puto bumbong,

Christmas eve without Noche Buena,

And in quiet, your family of 5 holds hand and pray for all the noisy, sticky, and huge family back home.

There will always be a time when Pinoys can be used to America,

but never on Christmas.