Poetry
waterlines
Ana Chen
this view is tired & slow, like
our feet as we trudge down the hill.
& i find my face nestled
between stained brushes
distraction incarnate: you
want to talk about me so
i know little about physics, less
about mama’s haunted faces but
i await, heart too loud: what, you say,
makes a man happy?
i can tell you about the ink glistening
on these unwanted monolids.
i know why i don’t like you, but why
do you hate yourself?
cherry lips & white pencils:
mama’s eyes were sad when
& i want to scream at you – shut up! – when
you say guns can stop rape, when you say
i donned mascara & ripped
jeans, as if to ask who are you?
you admire the man i have spent
the last two years despising, father
her daughter would never
carve a new face every morning.
to this land i spit upon. you
turn to me, scornful.
& i try to outline you. do we still
overlap, can we still touch?
do you take pride
in your moral high ground?
cosmetaphysical: maybe you are
braver than i could ever be, me who
in this half light it is becoming harder
to see your face & easier
philosophizes about a future & a face
you’ve never wanted. & it strikes me: you
to pretend i do not know you.
cold hands in our pockets, we
must hate me as i must love you, with
a love as weary as these etched eyes.
wander home.
As I’ve gotten older
and stronger, the weight of the sky
I bear has gotten heavier.
It’s still mostly my sky,
but sometimes a cloud or a storm
that belongs to my mother usually
and sometimes my father will blow in.
Every year my shoulders curl inward
just a hair more,
hunching a couple more millimeters, but I have to
keep my fingers locked
the clouds in a perpetual
lift. I know I must because my parents
say that if I don’t,
my azure heavens will
crash on my skull
like concrete textbooks on a chicken egg,
and everyone will see my yolk and whites
gooey and foul on the earth below.
But it is alright,
because if I do my job well,
I can rest my head on the moon as I dream
and be radiant with golden sunlight
like a gilded marble statue.
As I’ve gotten older
my shadow has grown with me.
Those that watch me hoist my sky
from the ground
are the ones I need to hide my shadow
from. Always my parents and friends
join them, and I must
conceal my shadow from them as well.
My shadow lives in the sweat
I must wipe away quickly, furtively,
from my brow,
and it lives in the errant tear
that rolls down my face
and the aborted scream
and sob that I stifle in the moon
when I feel as if my grip will die
at any moment. My shadow lives in the
shaking of my limbs that I struggle to still
and in the eternal
invisible dread that pools
in my heart and my lungs
and my stomach, and it lives in the dark
crescents under my red eyes
that I have long given up on trying
to hide. It lives in the despairing
thoughts of just letting go,
that occur when I feel as if my arms
have turned to lead and stone,
an anchor and a guillotine.
It is hard to hide my shadow. It
doesn’t want to hide
and simultaneously wants to crawl under my
boots and never come out. And I
could never cut away my shadow either,
as for better or for worse,
it is as much me as this weary flesh
vessel hosting my mind
comprises me. I am a sum, perhaps a
product, of two identities, one that exists
in secrecy and one that is paraded
in glory. I am more than the Name
of the glowing godling
holding up her own sky,
and I am more than the anguished shade
that wallows in agony and is mired in the fear
of failing and falling
and the futility of her future.
And yet I am also both.
Perhaps in another world,
there exists a Me, a Me that
walks in broad daylight
with a dancing shadow at her side
and not a shrinking one
that stays behind her, always behind her,
always under her steps.
-Anonymous
Anonymous
because I have hope
i think
it’s going to be okay
i try to tell myself
over & over
but later that night
with blood running down my arm
pressing it into my skin
tears staining my face
i blame myself
for everything i’ve done wrong
lazy
dumb
worthless
because i know i’m not
worth it
i think i’m -
i’m needed
i know i’m not
tomorrow
when i wake up
i hope
but
i’m lying to myself
i’m pretending that
it’s going to be okay
(now read it backwards…)
neon-16, or reflections on the chemistry of a dichotomous childhood
Anonymous
I. hydrolysis
wired soot sue me brownout
pins jeering black noise
tetherball string me cornerstone
lipreading whipped cream and backs
& fall
this curtain on this
carpet slipper comedy broomstick
splinters
II. moiety
dusty kisses attic allergies this
house strung between boiled
leaves leather
loaves
& love
nosebleeds maroon on
towels desert island sweet
spun sugar where are you
III. valency
acetone blue
aces cards slick against
sticky palms fans buzzing symphony
flies jealous accompaniment
visceral
& bites
nonsense empty wallets teeth
gummed together away?
IV. pyrolysis
pebble-studded
souls grudges buried
head-down in wrinkles mallets
mallards used to swim
here waiting to
wither
& okay
although i am tired
why not?
Anonymous
& i know
you’ve swallowed fire &
breathed an entirely different
sort of incense to
uproot yourself, sluiced
your fingers & dreams to
bone & bitterness
on washboards & white words.
so why are you so angry when
i shout with my voice
& yours? when i say that
yes, people joke about
the jiaozi you mold on
the weekends, dough in
silent waves? that
no, food is not
sacred for me – if i cannot
mold my eyes & nose & skin,
i can still mold my skin to bone,
so your qipao & jeans & dreams
can look good on me.
is your silence
strategy? because you
are so fast to yell
at the woman
at din tai fung for mocking
your accent, so quick
to point at my thighs &
stomach, quicker still
to point out all the errors
in my math
when i integrate the volume
between two curves, when
i try to subtract me
from you.
don’t you worry, mama: i
am still starving.
Chaim Durst
When I awake,
In that brief window
Before pain robs yet
Another day of color,
I rush to that part
Of my mind where you
Dwell,
And hide myself
In your arms.
Eric Kim
Tick Tock Tick--
an hour passed, an hour passing
Click On Quick--
a frenzy everlasting
Tock Tick Tock--
One at seven, one at nine
Poppy-cock--
Trudging through another Deadline
Tick Tick Tick--
Three cities, Ten minutes
Tock Tock Tock--
You realize your Limits.
stop.
sit down, and catch your breath.
in, then out.
in, out.
let your breathing slow,
and your heart will follow.
put on a smile,
and your heart will follow.
lay down in the grass, the sea of green.
look up at the skies, the blue serene.
and one by one
your anxieties will go.
now, start the clock up again.
this time, a little slower.
tick.
tock.
Eric Kim
Sing loud, old canary
Sing bright with all your might
into the world’s cacophony.
Bring light, old canary
Bring light into the night
A spark in the bleak infinity.
For every person, every soul
Every color unique
Conglomerates into
a bland blend--
And every purpose, every role
Every reason we seek
disintegrates into
a canned end.
And yet we adhere,
To loves and fears,
Through blood and tears,
for a moral unclear
Is It power or greed,
To avoid tedious toil,
To trade blood for oil,
For the pleasure we need?
Or is It passion or art,
To fill in the crevice,
To get others to notice,
and perceive in our heart?
Sing for me, love for me,
Handing out the alms for me,
Selfishness in charity
Happiness, security
Old canary, what makes it It?
Old canary, what makes It, it?
Jenapher Zheng
Heretic, they scream,
bastard, failure, we’re your only friends
red, skinny communists etched in the skin, taunting
You can’t roll your sleeves up, can you?
Selfish little harlequin
you torment those trying to help, you suck them dry
and spit them out
then cry that you can’t feed yourself
We watched you, mad in selfish sorrow
calling on the scissor genie, asking for too many
wishes –
two of which herein are granted –
yet you cannot free yourself
We saw into your heart when we were
pressed against your back, when you were too afraid
to show
and so we know
what terms on which we came, and
seek to rectify your mind on our two stilts, you pitiful
you selfish, stupid, silly girl
What have you done? Now
you can’t roll your sleeves up, can you?
What did I eat today?
Saccharine Tears
Trigger warning: eating disorders, strong/violent language, sexual references, antiqueer slurs
Today for breakfast I had your vision for the future
For MY future, foreclosed of homosocial possibility--
I had your vision of the nuclear family, your pale ivory fantasy,
The perfect cog in the seamless machine of your utopia.
I ate your alabaster dream, your whitewashed fiction,
And with it, I drank a glass of words--
Slurs and Gossip--
“Fuck the Fags”
“Kill the Queers”
“They’re going to hell”
Downed—Every. Last. Drop.
You fed me your beguiling lies, your seductive moxie
Telling me that I am important, that I am useful,
That I want to be productive for YOUR society--
To be YOUR tool for white supremacy--
To be brainwashed to hate my culture
And paint white over my yellow skin.
For breakfast today, I ate my self-worth,
Swallowing every bite down my burnt, bleeding throat.
And for Lunch, I had a rude awakening
On the menu was a recipe for stew--
A bubbling, boiling broth of blood and bones.
A saccharine confection of myths and lies--
That I’m important, that I am useful,
That I have a future in your society,
When in reality, my existence is paradox,
Because when I mix my two ingredients together
And combine them into the stew,
I create a poison for your world, for your future,
And your only antidote is onticide--
Rewrite me out of your world,
Erase me from your memories,
Turn back the clock to a time when I was innocent and pure,
When I was still YOUR model minority--
Before you learned that my “lifestyle” couldn’t produce your children,
Before my “choices” broke your rules,
Before my “phase” disrupted your order,
Before my “disease” poisoned everyone I touched.
Don’t you get it?
I can’t be your model minority.
I can’t be silent and obedient,
I can’t follow your rules because I am deviant,
I can’t be productive
Because you equivocate conformity with success.
My self-worth is locked in your white house
While I can never reach or find it
Because I’m trapped in my yellow house.
For lunch today, I rejected your fantasy
I broke free from imagining your world as a utopia,
I chose to accept reality over a dream
And locked myself into my own nightmare.
And for Dinner, I had enough
I had enough of your words, enough of your future.
I had courage, enough to tell you:
Fuck you.
Fuck you because you tell me that you love the gays,
That you accept me for who I am
But only when I act white,
And fuck you because you think your fetish is the same thing as loving me,
Because you think I’m hungry for dog meat
And White Dog is the best kind.
Because of you, I never feel gay enough,
Because of you, I never feel yellow enough.
Fuck you because queer is deviant, yet queer is still white--
Queer is desirable, queer is attractive,
Queer is fetish, queer is sex,
Yet queer is not me because you tell me Asian men have small dicks
Queer is not me because I am too fat, my eyes are too small,
Maybe you can just throw a bag over my head
Just like how I throw my head over a bag
And stick my fingers down my throat
And
For Dinner, I had my Rebellion
My mutiny, my revolt,
Yet the only thing that’s revolting now
Is my courage in a puddle of vomit on the cold floor.
For Lunch, I had my Awakening
My nightmare world, from dream to reality,
(R)ejected just as fast as accepted
Maybe I could sleep well tonight,
With a hollow hole of hunger in my stomach.
Maybe I can dream good dreams once again--
Dreams when I still fit into your world,
Dreams where I am skinny enough to be accepted again.
For Breakfast, I had Myself
My identity, my self-worth,
Gone with a single trigger--
A reset button at the back of my throat.
It’s funny how volatile your value is,
How easy it is to give up on yourself,
How quickly 364 days can be ruined, nulled, voided
With the single slip up of your finger.
Maybe I can drink something to soothe the burning and the pain,
Maybe I can drink your lies one last time.
I had a lot of things.
So what do I have left?
Why don’t you tell me?
Just like you’ve told me everything before--
Why don’t you tell me what I have and who I am,
Cook for me your new nightmare
So I can eat the same things tomorrow too.
After all, it can’t hurt to have a little more variety in my life--
At least, not as much you already have.