Cadence Cheah, Grandma’s Words on How to Hoard

Grandma’s Words on How to Hoard

Cadence Cheah

I walk into a room full of specks of colors— cheap plastic chairs, fat TVs, pirated DVDs, washes of old. Four generations of scuffling hours, things on things and dried flowers. We fill our beds with bricks. You said nevermind the encroaching sticks: stack, stack, stack. You remind us of past eluding present we can’t hold, but I can’t breathe on soil stopping us from growing roots as we seize things we build homes we make lives down the Pacific sea. You didn’t have to put in so much effort.

You didn’t have to put in so much effort. As we seize things, we build homes we make lives down the Pacific sea on soil stopping us from growing roots. I can’t breathe, you remind us of past eluding present we can’t hold. But stack, stack, stack, we fill our beds with bricks. You said nevermind the encroaching sticks. Four generations of scuffling hours, things on things and dried flowers, cheap plastic chairs, fat TVs, pirated DVDs, washes of old. I walk into a room full of specks of colors—