Drink More Water & Other Ways to Say I Love You

Drink More Water & Other Ways to Say I Love You

Brandon Duong

my parents didn’t start telling me that they Loved me until I left for college

a foreign place where the scent of pho could not kiss my senses and where the steam of my mother’s fried rice could not embrace me.

they figured these three words could keep me warm until reunion

in third grade, a picture book told me Love is ‘I Love you’. It is

hugs

kisses

flowers

crafting gifts

It told me that my family must not be loving enough.

my parents did not hug me much as a child.

they just worked until their hands went numb.

they just woke up earlier than the sun to prepare the day’s meals…every day,

Alisha Poonawala

arms too stiff to wrap around their son from polishing the floors every week, folding the laundry every Saturday

hands aching from kneading the dough and tenderizing chicken at 4 am each day.

how they played soldier 24/7, constantly on watch because Death had an affection for their sick son and

tried too many times to adopt him

Love in my family is like Asian people in American media, never really broadcasted but have always been

there.

Always existed.

Always thrived.

Love was going away at night to work overtime.

going weeks without seeing their children so that they could feed them.

Love was every, “Did you eat your vitamins?”

Alisha Poonawala

every, “Don’t run around with chopsticks or you’ll impale y ourself!” every, “You’re gonna get kidnapped if you don’t hold my hand!”

so Ba, Mẹ, how do I show you Love back?

what can a tree do to thank the Earth for the nutrients it gave?

our people speak through actions, so I want to raise mountains under your feet so that the world can know who you are.

Mẹ, I want to take pages from the Vietnamese book you gave me years ago and plant them in my ears

so I can hear every beautiful syllable your artist's tongue creates and understand.

I want to take the letters and cook them into a bowl of ban canh so that I can taste every accent mark. the metal of every dấu sắc, and feel the Riverbend in every dấu hỏi so let me thank you in your native tongue:

drink more water

is your pee clear?

eat more apples

I’ll be home soon.