MEMORY How do you reflect on the past? How has it limited your understanding of yourself and others? How has it transformed your understanding of yourself and your community? What are the sounds, images, and stories that you associate with memories? Where are there silences in your understanding of the past? How would you write a letter to a younger version of yourself? Based on these reflections, how do you imagine the future? What do you want to remember? How do you voice what you want passed down to future generations? How do you reflect on your past self now? -Tufts Asian Student Coalition (TASC)
2016-2017 editors: Vivian Tam Shirley Wang Belinda Xian
front cover: Belinda Xian back cover: Patrick Mahaney
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table of contents Brainstorm Belinda Xian
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Okage Sama De Anonymous
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Stranger Shirley Wang
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How I hate myself/ How Tufts taught me to hate myself/ How I learned to hate Tufts/ Leanna Pham
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Adulthood @awkwardlines
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Simple English Anonymous
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LILLIAN X TINDER @thefleshlightchronicles
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ado/apted Tai Williams & Photographs Tony Nguyen
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timeline & bry and I see a bird! Belinda Xian
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Reconciliation Nazifa Noor Sarawat
Little. Asian. Girl. Leanna Pham
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tears as large as oceans Patrick Mahaney
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How to leave Minnie Chen
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untitled Anonymous
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Brainstorm Belinda Xian
Okage Sama De Anonymous
Freshman year I wished to be blonde-haired Blue-eyed And freckled. Full Blown American If I were blonde, maybe people Would finally stop asking “Really? You can’t speak another language?” “Are you even Asian?” “You’re how many generations?” And being disappointed in my answers The words echoing in my head Etched into my skin Gouging at old wounds Until oh god is that blood on my arms And I think he was right I really am stupid lazy useless Maybe I am really just A burden, an outsider Worthless But my traitorous heart beats on I am I am I am I am (as someone once told me) I am the mumbled Japanese word Repeated in a Sunday service Sound divorced from meaning My friends and I whisper under our breaths About our brunch plans for the weekend We’ve always bonded over food All of which We pronounce perfectly I am the waves on the soft sand of Lagoon #2 Sun searing my skin
Cementing it onto my body My cousins’ laughter mingling with mine Until I’m no longer sure What is theirs And what is mine This is what ohana feels like I am the black kuromame on New Years Skin twinkling slick as an oil spill My mom tells me to eat more “They’re for good luck” Even though I tell her That I hate them Even when the truth is I’ve come to love them Okage sama de I am what I am Because of you I am Japanese AND American AND I exist AND I AM But I guess I got what I wanted Because my roommate called me “Practically White American”
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Stranger Shirley Wang -when I chose the dog I wanted from the litter of overlapping puppies, you paced back and forth outside the house, beneath the evening rainclouds, cursing the agreement we had made 6 months ago, contractually
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The first few days, we didn’t know if he would stay. It seemed like every time we let him out of his crate he found a spot of carpet to wet. The front room, with the piano that my brother and I never played anymore, quickly became his favorite 11 by 8 toilet. But throughout my days with him, the moments between empty spray bottles of Bissell Pet Stain, were full of momentous love for a small shih tzu. Though my mother was more tolerant and patient towards the new little stranger we had invited into our house, my dad was less considerate. Shirley, I’m returning him tomorrow. He would rant. No time. No time for this shit. It was too late. At the nearby Walmart, we had generated a silver bone-shaped tag with our address and his name: Junior. I wondered if he felt that specific emotion of having a home, with things delegated to him; the new sentiments of possessive words, “his” and “his own.” In the spring, my best girlfriend from a few blocks away came running to me barefoot, slapping her feet against the concrete sidewalk, loaded with breaking news. Her neighbor’s cat had been roaming across the street in front of her house, and she had seen it. The ginger tabby had stopped to sweeten her paw, when a truck came blazing. It jolted over the animal without even slowing down. A murder: brief, anonymous. I was reminded of how much life my own pup carried. My dad continued to threaten and curse Junior every day, never hurting him or pushing him, but spitting the occasional insult at his snout. Dirty dog, Dad would mutter. One day, he picked up Junior, left him outside, plopped him in the grass, slammed the door shut. I ran to him with a flopping piece of lunch meat in my hand, before he chased any wandering rabbits into the streets, misunderstanding of a honking horn, into a levelled, concrete grave. My dad and I fought a lot; sometimes, we are too much of the same person to ever agree. The contract between us had stated that I was responsible for all of Junior’s walks, grooming and meals. I was resolute on proving my premature declaration that I, as a ten-year-old, had become an adult, and a reliable character. And then I had to prove something that wasn’t true. Instead, every night, I slipped into my bed, Junior still needing me downstairs. From my bedroom, I would hear the soft creak of the front door as my dad clipped on Junior’s leash and lead him around our yard. Dad would always follow this up by sitting at his desk, working at his computer, with Junior curled up at his feet. Sometimes he’d would rest his socked toes on Junior’s back. He’d gently brush the grains of his fur forwards and backwards. Junior accepted the contradictions in their rapport.
-when I got home you didn’t cook, dragging eggs in boiling water you used three bowls every day. Two women: we lingered to pack the pears in the freezer, store the mooncake sweets, and replace congee cans with Ensure, the trees outside lived amongst tall grass that grew to our waists. One man, you hunched skeletal in your shirt, too big after years of being told to lose weight. I was away at school when my dad got sick. I would call my mother and she would always answer in hushed tones. I would ask her where she was; if I should call later. But she always gave me the same replies, I’m at home a little early or it’s my break, I’m walking around outside. I couldn’t see her end of the phone line, the wall in the hospital waiting room that she stared at every day, the salad she’d order in the cafeteria, the hotel ceiling when she couldn’t fall asleep. When I got to Iowa City for break, I picked up Junior from the sitter. He was returned to me a bit subdued, with tangled fur and scissor-mangled whiskers, in desperate need of a grooming. The contract established 10 years ago, that indebted me to care for him, it had seemed, had been greatly violated. My parents returned from the hospital, and Junior still sat with my dad; these days, beneath the footrest of the rocking chair we placed in front of the television. This time, they wouldn’t sit for just two hours, but sometimes all day as my dad recovered. Junior was much older and slower now. His toys were still strewn about, though the carpet had been replaced and was non-absorbent. The night shift walks were returned to me. -when they told you we were done with the ritualistic burning of your cells, sacrificed to unseen gods, they gave you a bell to ring, but you only worried you would be too loud My dad would pace around the living room, cautiously treading and centering his balance with each step. During one of these bouts of exercise, one of Junior’s stuffed chipmunk toys was in Dad’s path. He pressed his foot down onto its squeaky box and lightly peeped it. Dad stared intently at Junior, unsmiling, waiting for him to come over. Junior sat on his hind legs, cocked his head, perked his ears and looked back. There are no words, no medical terms shared between my dad and the dog in this quiet moment. Junior didn’t understand the metastasis. He couldn’t comprehend what radiation did or what it meant for my dad’s body. In my ignorance and desire for detachment, even I had no idea. But I’ve read somewhere that dogs can sense a human’s discomfort. They can detect change in the person’s body chemistry, smell an imbalance of volatile organic compounds on their breath. It makes them act in a calmer way, like they would with a small child. They’ll bow their head, sniffle, and sympathetically wag their tail. Instinct guides them to lay their furry bodies next to the distressed. I’m in my room again, it’s late at night. My dad settles into his rocking chair downstairs. He turns down the TV volume and drinks from the glass of soda next to his armrest. He sighs, then clears his throat, and pulls a blanket over his legs. Junior jingles, gets up and yawns, his name tag clicking against the collar’s metal chain. I close my eyes as I imagine him walking over to sit by my dad, who only greets him with what are you doing? Stinky dog. -my dad and I argued last night, this time about his stubborn denial of pain, his preference for solitude, his random anger. Words convene in my mind; things he said to me this morning: -if I said something yesterday that hurt you, I apologize.
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How I hate myself/ How Tufts taught me to hate myself/ How I learned to hate Tufts/ by Leanna Pham Three years into my undergraduate experience at Tufts, and I’m still here wondering how the hell am I in these classes? Do I exist in these classes when I do not speak? My silences stress me out, because my voice is supposed to prove that I am there, that I get participation points, that I am smart, that I did the work, that I hold opinions. I try to do all the readings for class because I want to participate, to feel like I belong in this classroom space, but I need to prepare. Prepare to raise my hand and voice, prepare my lines word for word, prepare myself for the physiological response of talking in big groups, prepare prepare. No matter how much I read, I can’t contribute in the ways my peers know how to. Without the reading, without any preparation, they’re already leading the discussion. Why can’t I simply make a comment? Why is it so hard to follow along? 90 minutes go by and I realize I still have not been able to speak. Tension eases, but takes up a different form as I hope yet doubt that next class will be different. A semester goes by and I feel like shit because I can’t take up the any amount of space or energy in these classes. How am I the only one who hasn’t said something all semester? Do I even speak outside of these classes? Is that it? What the fuck? Three years into my undergraduate experience at Tufts, and I’m full of ‘what the fucks,’ better yet, ‘why the fucks.’ Why the fuck is this classroom a fucking competition to speak? Why the fuck do you need to respond to every question when there are other people in this room? Why the fuck can’t you get out of my way when I’m walking on the same sidewalk as you? Why the fuck do you think you are not any different from the systems of power and those you criticize? Why the fuck do I need to feel like I deserve to be here? Why the fuck is everyone around me crippling from stress? Why the fuck is it so hard to connect with people on this campus? Why the fuck is it so difficult for people to make eye contact or acknowledge other people? Three years into my undergraduate experience at Tufts, and I can finally start to see why the fuck people hate places like Tufts. This place leaves me feeling undeserving of the present and never sufficient in my (mental, emotional, physical) labor. I can’t nap, can’t spend extra time talking to friends, can’t walk slow, can’t watch a TV show, without feeling guilt or the weight of all that could be done. Classrooms are a game – a performance of knowledge and skills, where the application of identifying and responding to inequality is the extra credit no one has time for after class.
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Adulthood @awkwardlines
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timeline Belinda Xian
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preschool classroom
c. 2000
“That girl is eating a bar of soap1 for lunch!”
1st grade classroom,
c. 2002
“She’s Chinese!”
somewhere in Massachusetts,
c. 2005
Mommy, are we Black or White? “We’re yellow.” That’s not a real color! We learned in school that people are either Black or White.
middle school classroom,
c. 2008
“Can I see your math homework?”
AP US History classroom,
2012
“Why did you choose to go by an Anglicized first name2?”
Sharon High School Lobby,
2013
“When did you all3 arrive in Sharon?”
Downtown Crossing,
2015
“Konnichiwa!”
Bolt Bus (from Boston to New York City),
2015
“It’s so cool how you text your parents in your native tongue.”
Asian American Center Retreat,
2016
“Where are you from? Japan?” 4 Tufts University. “Where are your parents from?” We moved to Boston from California. “Oh, because I have a friend from Hong Kong.” I don’t know them.
bry and I see a bird! Belinda Xian
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I was eating a ĺĽśéť„ĺŒ…, a steamed custard bun.
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My legal first name has been Belinda since birth.
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Chinese foreign exchange students had recently arrived at Sharon High.
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I approached the food table and the chef started talking to me.
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Simple English Anonymous
I speak different forms of the English language. The form of the English language I learned at school is conventional, a form that I did not speak at home with my mother. In my school papers, I always tried to be adept at using correct grammar. I was a prescriptivist, so when my mother spoke in choppy English, it bothered me. She used to always advise me by saying, “if you do not love you, No one love you.” She meant that nobody will love me if I didn’t love myself first. She told me that to remind me to take care of myself, to put away the book I was immersed in, and get a good night sleep. This was a common thing my mother would do, that is, before her surgery. Three years ago, my mother developed arthritis in her knee, making it extremely difficult for her to walk. She was required to get surgery or risk never being able to walk again. Throughout her worries before the surgery and throughout her pain after it, the doctor spoke in complex terms, which I explained to my mother. The more we spoke, the more conscious I became of how I chose certain English words to suit her language, a form of English that would be classified as choppy or broken by others. One time at the clinic, I found myself simplifying words to my mother, “No need for metal in knee,” when the doctor described that her condition was mild, and she was not required to get a copper bracelet. Although her condition was ‘mild’ and her surgery may have helped her walk upright again, our lives were never the same. Due to the surgery, my mother lost the only job that supported us. I took care of her during her recovery, and consequently, I spoke her version of English. I realize that I only spoke this way to her to help her understand. I valued our motherdaughter relationship, despite how I can only speak limited Vietnamese. I had to find a way to communicate with her. To me, my mother’s English is not broken at all. It is just straight-forward and simple. It helps me understand her feelings, and most importantly, her way of life. It is our connection. Language is how humans connect and understand each other. I connect to my mother with our English. I love all the different versions of English that I use. I love the way I had the choice, more choices than I ever had, to pick different syntaxes to express my feelings. Although we faced hard times during her illness, the experience made me realize that our English brings us closer together.
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Reconciliation Nazifa Noor Sarawat
In my classes I sat and listened to young white men in their 30s explain hydraulic flow The way water particles move around obstructions are governed not by free will or empathy but by - here, take these equations there are fundamental principles and then there are things we just guess at I swallowed them and they kept me alive I was born in prayer, washed in prayer I rose in prayer, and buried myself in prayer, held my hands out and closed my eyes and asked God for something (anything) to close my fingers around An older man taught me about infinity and spaces where only points exist Somewhere in all his proofs I heard the touch of God I kept looking for the sound in my scribbled notes in my scribbled poems, in the chalkdust A friend holds me one night - or am I holding her? Water moves through our bodies Tears take familiar vector paths, follow contours on faces that took millennia to come together God guides my body, makes it soft makes it a vessel to hold a friend’s tears God guides my hands I trace my fingers around her face and it is something to hold on to
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@thefleshlightchronicles @thefleshlightchronicles @thefleshlightchronicles @thefleshlightchronicles @thefleshlightchronicles @thefleshlightchronicles @thefleshlightchronicles @thefleshlightchronicles @thefleshlightchronicles @thefleshlightchronicles
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LILLIAN X TINDER
@thefleshlightchronicles
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adoapted Tai Williams
Photographs Tony Nguyen
Hello. It’s been a few years Since I’ve last known you. I’ve been writing to you but I Can’t talk to you Except in the photographs I never took willingly. Why am I so against taking photos of Myself ? Why am I so against seeing the image of Myself ?
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I write symphonies with syllables That try to run the word count up to a thousand So I can try to paint with words what A picture can paint in seconds. But I’ve only talked to you three times.
2017, the selfie in the bedroom mirror: When you, for the first time in 21 years Think you finally have the gumption to say “I’m attractive”. When you, for the first time in 21 years Stop trying to distort your body, your hair, your eyes To look like the school time classmates Who other’d you. Who called you too Asian without your glasses. Who made you forget that The smile in your eyes And the chaos in your hair And your stature that mirrors the women who raised you Are not made to be stretched and cropped and molded, But are meant to be celebrated. 2015, the picture with the first love: When you thought you knew what love was, When you thought love was
Maybe it was when you take a picture to try to seem alright, But, maybe for the first time, maybe for the longest time, Fails to convey The starvation you two are facing Since you’ve only been subsisting on candy. When your love should be a home cooked meal where You may burn your hand on the stove, You may have to sit in heat of the kitchen, But you know exactly what goes into it And you know exactly what you get out of it. 2014, the picture with the Thanksgiving dinner stuffed family: Stuffed to the brim with hot pot, slow cooked beef, And the mish mash of culture and assimilation that makes Vietnamese-American life. The mash of culture that gives you life. The mash of culture that gives you confusion. The mash of culture that tosses you from side to side Trying to balance yourself between two worlds.
A song A movie scene An alternate reality that would make you feel
When the doctor says he shouldn’t learn Vietnamese Because it’ll confuse him. (Read: so he won’t have an accent)
Complete.
When you tried for 18 years to drain The blood from your veins to replace it with bleach.
When you didn’t know that Love is not a beachside wedding at sunset, But holding your partner while She’s breaking down and you’re breaking down and everything is breaking down and everything hurts but you still stay because you wring out the words that were effortless a while ago. When did “I love you” became a burden rather than an honor? When did “I love you” became an obligation rather than a choice?
When you tried for 18 years to blame Everything on your parents. (When you still blame everything on your parents.) When you’ve been colonized by the friend Who masquerades as an ally. When you find home in a mediocre Vietnamese meal Because you’re trying to play 21 years of catch up. When you’re still holding onto hope in photographs That haven’t been taken.
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Little. Asian. Girl. what do you know of anger? of sound? what do you know of the world beyond your hello kitty? i know of an anger as deep as oceans white people let us drown in as full of explosives as the lands white people left forgotten i know of an anger too great to be wasted on you. of sounds that will never reach your ears because I will not be weak will not be weak for you will not be weak for your interest will not be weak for you to save me for your hands to grab me call yourself strong stronger let yourself believe that i give a shit when all you know to carry is dead weight i know of hands, of bodies carrying life making life bridging life little, asian, girl do not let them tell you that life does not exist in your body that you do not have opinions cant have opinions when you have no history have no proof have no hashtag
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you are a riot they do not see coming do not let them cut you into smaller pieces because they are starving for space your body will not be cooked your blood is tired of boiling do not believe them when they name you Innocent as if we could ever be empty of of hurt of violence of fuck yous do not let them touch you calling affection for our silence our skin little asian girl you don’t have to be little you don’t even have to be girl by Leanna Pham
tears as large as oceans Patrick Mahaney
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How to leave Minnie Chen
I remember the night that my mom received a phone call from Taiwan. It is March 2015, and I am home for spring break. My mom answers the call and I hear her voice shift to a tone of concern. I dread this tone, yet I can never ignore it. My grandma is unconscious in the hospital. Her vitals are low and they don’t know if she will come back. My mom is shocked. She keeps telling her brother she just recently talked to her, how she was supposed to call last week but was too busy. What are the doctors going to do? Time passes. My uncle video calls my mom and shows us my grandma lying in the hospital. She calls out to her mom. The anguish in my mom’s voice as her world shatters. “媽.” The call ends. My mom is crying. Another call. Several calls? I don’t know how many calls were made that night. Each time a call came in, hope dwindled. My uncle is crying. My mom and I cry together. My mom spends the rest of the night making plans for her trip to Taiwan. She doesn’t sleep. I wonder what it feels like to spend a 16 hour flight alone, traveling to attend your mother’s funeral. One day, I will make that trip. ________________________________ _____...___________________________ ____________ I had always had a hard time communicating with my grandma. I found her overbearing and hard to understand, literally. She was extremely anxious about flight times, making us pack three days before we were departing, and then telling us to leave for the airport hours earlier than we needed to, literally pushing us out the door. To stop her nagging, we eventually began to lie to her about when our flight was. Her hearing wasn’t very good so my family and I would have to raise our voices when speaking to her. My mom and my grandma spoke to each
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other in Taiwanese but even with a shared language, my grandma was not an easy person to talk to. I don’t know if it was the natural processes of aging taking form in hearing and memory loss that made conversation so difficult. As long as I could remember, my mom and grandma’s conversations sounded very repetitive. The same questions repeated, the same reassuring. Did you eat? How’s work? How’s school? We’re good, everyone’s doing great. Don’t worry. We ate. When are you visiting Taiwan? Soon. In the summer prior to my first year at Tufts, I went to Taiwan by myself. I had just graduated high school and this trip marked the start of a new phase of my life. My yearning to go back to Taiwan had peaked in my senior year of high school as I grew weary of my White town and White peers who didn’t appreciate any other “Chinese” food other than sweet and sour chicken and pork lo mein. I dreamed of Taiwan, the smells, the sounds, a place so far and foreign, yet so comfortable. Growing up, my family and I regularly visited Taipei to visit my relatives, but I had never been there by myself without my mom. I arrived full of anticipation and stepped into the suffocating June heat, proudly carrying my newfound sense of independence. I was free - but I wasn’t. After spending two weeks traveling around the island with my uncles and their families, I had a few days left in Taipei before going home to the States. My 18 year old self would describe the last few days as awful. At that time, my grandma had difficulty walking and hardly ever left the apartment. She would slowly shuffle around the apartment and silently watch me as I watched TV. I felt suffocated by my grandma’s presence. I wanted to leave. I wanted to explore. But I was immobilized.
When my great aunt visited to take me out, my grandma began to yell at her sister, telling her I couldn’t leave because I had to pack. I cried, upset at my grandma for not letting me leave, upset that I was being treated like a child, upset that I didn’t have the words, upset that I felt like a child. I knew I was perfectly capable to go out alone or with whomever I wanted, yet I couldn’t just ignore my grandma, I couldn’t act like the entitled, disobedient American child. My great aunt and I still left that day. When I came back in the evening, it was as if the whole argument never happened. I told my uncle and aunt what happened, how “mad” grandma got. I complained to my mom over the phone. My uncle told me it was fine to just leave on my own, reaffirming my independence. On my last day, I left early in the morning and spent the entire day exploring the city just as I had always wanted to. I found out later my grandma had frantically called my uncle when she couldn’t find me, but my uncle reassured her that I was fine. As the hours passed on, I realized how much fun I wasn’t having wandering aimlessly by myself. I was exhausted from the scorching heat and unsure of where to go. But I was scared to go back to my grandma. I didn’t want to feel trapped again. My flight home was early the next morning. Since my grandma was asleep, I didn’t say goodbye. This trip was the last time I saw my grandma. My grandma is no longer around to watch me in the living room as we watch TV, wait for me to come back, pest me to pack or eat, call out my name, link onto my arm for support. When I went back to Taiwan last year, I didn’t feel the lack of my grandma’s presence. I think my grandma’s room still smells the same, but I’m unsure. I’m having a hard time remembering what her voice sounded like, what her slow, shuffling walk looked like. What else have I forgotten? Two years
later, the absence of a proper goodbye, the silence of our last parting still haunts me. If anything is ever expected from my visits to Taiwan, it is a goodbye - the marking of my unbelonging, my impermanent visit. I feel guilty. How annoying I found my grandma, how all I wanted to do was get away from her, how I left without saying anything. I know my grandma held onto me in order to spend time with me, especially when she spent most of her days alone. How rare it is to even have a shared moment together between grandma and granddaughter. Yet, how could we have spent time together other than sitting in the apartment in silence? Given who I was, could I have felt any differently? Did that make me a bad granddaughter? ________________________________ _____...___________________________ ____________ The night my mom lost her mom, I could see a little bit of life leave my mom’s body. What has my mom’s departure from home more than 30 years ago done to my mom, my grandma, and their relationship? Every time you say goodbye, you are unsure of the next time you will see them again, unsure of how much the other will change, unsure of what milestones or incidents you will miss, unsure of how the other is really doing because no one wants to make the other worry, no one wants to criticize the pursue of the so called American Dream deliberately designed to kill us. Phone calls capture little and hide a lot. For the first 22 years of her life, my mom lived with her mom. She knew her mom as the woman who had diligently worked and raised her and her two brothers. But as the years go by, time takes a noticeable hold of our bodies. I
grew. My mom grew. My grandma grew and eventually began to shrink as her world became reduced to the apartment. The person you once knew no longer exists and you weren’t present to witness the gradual changes. When did conversations begin to become more filled with silence and the ability to hold a conversation fades? And for what? Are the losses worth it when your children become strangers living in your house because that house is built on a foundation of unaddressed pain and losses? When your children fail to form any relationship with your mom? When your children fail to acknowledge your intelligence and instead point out every English error you make? You are completely isolated. I don’t need to travel to another country to feel disconnected from my mom, I have been disconnected since birth. Now that I am constantly departing from the home I grew up in, I think about how much time will pass with each goodbye, how the amount of time I am gone increases as my age increases. These departures are becoming more and more difficult as I see time’s existence placed on my parents’ faces. It’s hard to get up and out of bed because his whole body aches. He can’t drive at night because he’s losing his vision. It’s hard to do anything after work other than just go home because she is not getting enough sleep. She has to be extra careful walking the dogs now because she can’t afford to slip on ice like last time. Living alone, what are they doing to take care of themselves? What are they hiding? Who will take them to the doctor if they can’t do it? If I do not worry, who will? Though we physically live in the same country, the distance between us is too massive. The silences surrounding loss, emotion, and trauma are embedded in the fabric of my family. I think about how much larger silences have grown
since we, as a family, have all physically separated from each other. Conversations are so stifled as we have learned to become silent beings in order to survive in a world that forces us to put our heads down and “work harder.” When my mom talks about how she hardly leaves the house other than for work, I feel the weight of her loneliness take over my body. Her pain is my pain. I am not there with her, but it is inescapable. I struggle to understand this feeling of entrapment and responsibility. I struggle to speak since the silencing of an emotional life has caused me to invalidate and swallow every one of my feelings. How do I support her in my capacity, as somebody who is growing up and trying to navigate this world on my own? How can I make life easier for her? How can I thrive if she can't thrive? If not me, then who? It isn’t easy to leave when I am constantly pulled in different directions with no idea which direction is “best” for me. I know we are not static people. Living is departure - it is moving, coming, going, leaving, arriving. It is simultaneously leavetaking and place-taking. We live in this world and depart from this world. I am living and learning on my individual path, but that path is not without my parents, their struggles, their pain, my struggles, my pain, all shaping every fiber of my being. A departure is not a singular act that happens and we move on. I carry who and what I leave behind everywhere I go. With such little time we have left in this world together, how do I not let these losses consume me when I have seen the way departures break people? Leaving is not as freeing for me as it is for others. I can't just leave. Don’t tell me how good leaving will feel. It hurts.
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--Speak with the tongue you swallowed I’m filled with it My tongue swallowed a million times over And a stew of chewed up words Yet the speaking still doesn’t come easy Burn quietly please It’s only polite But the fragrance of my presence Will linger A body like a rotting fruit Sweeter With each bruise Shame is an insult hurled At your own soul I’m sorry For The brine of some old happiness Flakes off and drifts Into my awaiting mouth And the flavor is full And beautiful
Like when the man who everyone thinks is drunk sings under his breath on the bus so he won’t cry because his daughter is dead Like the pristine gleam of ivory keys where I build love to fight the silvery cold weight of her broken history Like when I was ashamed of the constitution of my fibers and you tried on its exotic flavor carefree and indulgent as you always are Instead of like a dewy blushing petal I ran so far So far from my father That I ran into him How alcoholism is inherited I really ran from myself Moments I remember: My hands when I was five Playing with rocks in my shoes and grass between fingers My first drink at twelve Her wiping my cheek tenderly The light hitting the red pepper in that stall just so The midnight of her skin Nostalgia like an orgasm
My blood will be heard My blood that crossed a sea to find a beast My blood that released vibrant in then uncharted places My blood between my thighs My blood that I spat when instead of crawling out of my shell I tried to crawl out of my body And the blood that rushed to my cheeks like a stampede When honesty crawled through my lips I can not hate What does that say about my love? My softness Is like curdled cheese Like the crust of two day old General Tso’s chicken
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She sang me to sleep Hugged me so sweet I clutched her purple gray Threads of a sweater And prayed She’d never die She said I can’t be your mother If you don’t love him like I do And the taste of her love was Fragrant and bitter And hot and richly sweet And I licked the salt off her fingers I used to think vodka smelled like fathers Until I left the haze of his breath and the
Heat of his hands Now I know it’s his fragrance alone And every sip I take is like a prayer to him A libation to my own body and soul It’s a comfortable distance for you to stay Don’t worry, I could never forget you, Leave you to decay someplace far away You’ll forever be in reach But you won’t Buckle my knees again Or sing crackling water into my ears so I can’t dream Or reach around inside my ribcage Scraping me clean Come, you can stay close, See the paint that drips in my eyes The lips that I kiss The flowers Her flowers That I smell and then taste The fever I draw from his body Without eyes that can see The memory of you will always be One foot away Thank you for teaching me the Difference Between being emotional And being loving
1. The end of things can be beautiful 2. The end of this cup of tea was so gorgeous it almost made me cry and I pressed some loose petals against my teeth and it felt like freedom 3. I don’t know how to sing like laughter but the smile we shared over this cup was the closest thing I’ve ever heard to angel tears 4. This was the end
The sun used to glide Over our tar black hair As we filled the cracks in our hands With onion root and caterpillar waltzes When I was with me Forgetting that I breathe When I was with you Forgetting how to breathe
Flushing, New York, NY
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