Rachel Chen, Kate Hizon, Prav Sachdeva, Suvali Dhanek, Audrey Chong, Angela Shu, Trang Le, Anne Gvozdjak, Kelsey Chen, Linda Liu, Anonymous
By Rachel Chen
we make jiao zhi and you crimp together dough
lick your fingers, soaking the edges
a baptism
while eating guacamole at the same table. it stains
and sticks to the gap between your front teeth
sacrilege, I think
for no reason at all
so I get rid of the feeling
by resolutely stuffing chips
down my throat.
by Anonymous
one month clean. it might have been three weeks. i wake up, my left arm aching. i haven’t felt that in quite some time. i look to see it covered in figments of what had once been. i can still see the pain, or rather, the relief, but i long to feel the blade against my bare skin once again. funny, isn’t it? something that i could never imagine myself doing, something my adolescent persona would flinch at the sight of became my lover. i reach into my bag, my hand immediately finds the greyscale scissors. the cool blade moves close to my disappearing scars as i yearn to see just one droplet of blood. these scars had once manifested themselves as my lifeline. now, they are hardly visible. inhaling sharply, i turn my head away. today was not the day. glancing up, i aimlessly draw another line next to the inaccurate number of lines that populated my white board. the red had turned to black and the pleasure had turned to regret. who was my hero rather than the feeling of solitude? then again, it began, over and over. funny how quickly a month can turn into a minute.
dhanamdhanyampadevadet: taking responsibility for my home - Roots (May)
Commentary by Suvali Dhanak
My long middle toes tell me I’ll never fall in love, but my curved pinky tells me I’ll be excellent at rolling rotis.
I carry coldness and duty in red polished pots on my wide hips and atop my head,
respectively; I inherited them from my grandmother. My joints ache with the arthritic
nobility she wrote into the wrinkles of my knuckles.
My grandfather tells me to think before I speak, the same words he yelled at my mother as her eyes
stood level with his hip in now-amalgamated Zimbabwean casinos; she drank the scotch that
splashed out of his crystal glass and fell asleep in her tomato soup.
I see my mother’s memories playing on the tapestry of my grandfather’s sandal-less
tomato-red-sock-clad left foot as the missing sandal becomes the instrument by which he
assimilates me into obedience.
My cheekbones tell me I’m my mother’s daughter and my chin says that I’m my masi’s and maa’s
beti. Foi and foi-baa have no visible claims to my body.
I worship the maternal masonry by which I was constructed - the precious Tigerskin Jasper
that comprises the curvature of my every bone.
Amani tells me her father was Rayam’s famed casanova before he breathed svaha-heat into a fire
and was tied to a woman’s odni.
I pull a coiled golden thread from my choli. Or my belly. It’s hard to tell. But it certainly
feels as if I’m going to throw up my fatherlessness all over the mandir floor.
by Parv Sachdeva
#1
Kitchen in the solace
“Walk along the fingers of a squirmy marmalade”,
As I focus on deployed weapons of human hunger hanging,
From iron cages well suited to encapsulate my thoughts.
There’s a little plant on the border of this small country,
Hence the room I am in.
Its cupped leaves hang not dry but frivolous and stands,
Waiting since eternity for someone to save it.
I am the culprit of servitude.
And the victim of this insane solitude.
The mahogany wipes away canals of tight rosewood,
Embedded like veins in disguise.
This cushion that supports my body and head full of,
Dust on this calm and serene climate of kitchen,
While the ash-tray is filling up with economy from yesterday.
My cigarette jiggles like a red hot sword cutting through the air,
And each amber death leads a soul in the air.
The day is after I get up,
This kitchen is where I boil my dreams,
Wash them up,
Rinse them clean.
And seep them uprooted in cupboards of glass of fragile inhuman history,
Yet to be used again.
#2
Nocturne in Black and Gold – A falling Rocket
after Nocturne in Black and Gold, 1875 painting by James Abott McNiell
So winter has come to a halt,
You can be anyone,
Burning photographs, houses –
Anything that doesn’t exist for you.
And now,
I am laughing at the stars,
I hate this minute,
Because each day you were falling.
I feel incredibly low,
A muddy Christmas of ‘97
If the message was out of time,
No one responds.
Them blue lights and ceilings,
Of glassy skies, churches, pits, cycles –
And every dead deserve,
We ignored.
I wish you could,
Help me touch, my callas
Them green gardens of hopes,
Them broken fountains and no floods.
#3
For the people faster than light;
This world revolves too slow,
Or maybe I am too fast to notice,
I am too slow.
Your flower bloomed in time,
While mine was just wasted years,
I’ve been talking to walls all this time.
You don’t seem to understand my world,
I cannot deny yours.
You put me down, kick my guts,
Take me back and spill my lust,
You take my belongings and throw them up,
They look beautiful anywhere, while I pick them up.
You hate me now, I wonder why,
That’s my job.
I know I don’t fathom but still I cry.
You burn my brain and twist me till I’m numb,
I’ve hated you all for so long, that I’ve gone insane.
You don’t reach out for anything,
I just reside in resilient thoughts,
You don’t understand my world,
I don’t understand mine.
Commentary by Kate Hizon
the American baptizes us in civilization the way
the Spaniard baptized us in organized religion.
and we shake, heavy and soaked with sampaguita oil
and the weight of the gold sun.
cellophane wrappers stick to the forehead of my third cousin
tamarind skin shining, she has never seen herself in Miss Universe
only in the outer coat of a yema triangle, quick to crumble
into the gooey milk and sugar.
across from her my father’s hands tell of the times
of cuts from fault wiring, a hammer shattering
his thumbnail. a new one now growing to push
the blackened one away.
and my grandma in the next room spitting onto the home phone
syllables of Kapampangan and crushing all the bones of her old
high school classmates. she does not care for the boxing match
that rages on, the mass of bodies packed in the living room,
holding onto their styrofoam plates and beef tapa.
the opponent is on the floor before we go home.
by Trang Le
Mother -
when you die, whose songs will I sing?
Words have ebbed themselves away from me the
day I learned god does not reside in his
church. He left an empty hall to echo
my doubts.
Had I strike red stepping out of
your womb, I would have saved the both of us.
My mouth never learned satisfaction.
Eating out of your bowl was a daily prayer. Your pestle mocked me for all the grains of rice I could not swallow.
In another world grains of white would drown
out both our hunger, yours seeping to survive.
And mine wanting to cry.
In another world my tongue would lull you to
sleep. So that you do not die of time, of
silence, of us.
In another world, you will understand
the day your daughter decides to forget in
order to breath.
handwash
Handwash. Dry flat.
Mother -
1. Undo my seam.
2. Lay my skin under the sun.
3. Collect my bones.
4. Bleach out the odor of your home.
speak
My words speak to you, neither of us understanding the
Droplets of hello and I am ok
Trickling down into a basin reflecting our broken tongues
Glistening with our shame
We watched as they turned to pearls, grind to dust
Because I was too busy being American
Because I was too busy being cool
To say,
Mẹ,
Mẹ khỏe không?
Con nhớ mẹ.
My mouth is wet from this new motherland. I swallow her milk.
She comes easily, quenching my thirst. Nightmares behind closed lids are
no monsters when inked on crumpled papers.
&
I hungered, I swallowed, too comfortable to change.
&
I have grown to forget you. You and your chè.
You and your motherland. You and your thick accents.
&
You watched me smother myself in gluttony.
Forgetting is another way of saying goodbye - Part (July)
by Audrey Chong
If you want antiques, go to the morning
market tucked behind the alley: a hundred
grandmothers and grandfathers for
the choosing. The sun sleeps on our skin, in
elbows, on egg-heads. We perch on gingham
quilts, stitching nests out of whatever we couldn’t
give to our children before they left. Here,
take this — a roasted chicken, stuffed eggplant,
my only china. Oh, daughter, you are my
only china, my only one for my oneself. I hide your name
in my stomach, where you used to sleep; believe
me when I say I felt you kicking the moment I fell
in love. When I hear your voice on the phone,
I lullaby your name awake, up through my throat,
knowing you need me to be here
still, the way you remember me, as the woman
who mothered you with milk & moon,
in this dust, silvering coins out of silks we couldn’t
waist. Waste is an inherited fear,
one we can’t shake out of our lungs: instinct
is splitting oranges eight-fold, stewing
the same tea leaves for a year. They tell me
I eat apples whole now, tell me I don’t
say your name. Am I still the same? Am I here? —
Is there anything more vintage than our own
blood & bone? I pray to every wedding & war
that has pulled our family together; in
dreams I slip on your bridal dress & play house,
like I am young again & dreaming
of being my mother. The most beautiful body
is a bloated one, limbs heavy
with the weight of something new. I never doubted
motherhood: how it trembled, a swollen sun,
underneath my tongue. Love is a hot thing, &
daughter, how I love you. How I
miss you, when I can’t recall how you look
like me. I lost the curve of your cheek
& cannot say my hands belong to a mother’s;
I am searching for your touch still.
In dreams I slip on your apron & in my arms I hold
three girls, their faces slurred
sweet, & I’m kissing their noses, & what were
their names again? Where are they
now? Why haven’t they come with you? --
Why do all of our children leave, and then take
our memory too? The last time I saw you, you were
mine. Today, you are your own oneself.
Daughter, you must remember for the both of us:
how I love you beyond what this body
has to offer.
By Angela Shu
9:14
alarms 8:05 :10 :15 :20 :27
8:30 a fly poked
8:35 my oil spill
8:40 my bra all the pads fallen out
the grime of the laundry bag
50% of my breast at 8:42
50% woman and 50% grime
slosh deep in my gut. 8:48
my secret double gut that only comes out
4:00 when aliens
play pretend night
4:50 i math
you haven’t seen me math
enough oriental sweat to fill 5 hours
4:51 i math 5:51 i math
night is 100% and 3 hours
slept through lecture
i am 50% bad
50% woman
50% chinese through my triple-gut
50% banana my piano teacher told me
Mozart doesn’t compute
in my white insides
14 minutes i
am 14% bad and 86% yellow
3 days for me to send an email
10:15 email and this time
look at the lady’s face.
$30 copay does my insurance need
a diagnosis
(aka
what’s the chance
Northrop Grumman thinks i’m fucking crazy)
10% i say 10%.
they know
“call if urgent” “walk-in if urgent”
is urgent
when i feel 80% bad
is it more like 70% bad
or do i need a 99% purity rating
of sandpaper sadness.
does my face need to look like a 10.
maybe a 10 is a 7 is a 2
mild discomfort is mild
the mild face on the doctor door
is yellow
my octo-guts at 9:14
i am not so urgent right now,
9:14 i am as mild as Sriracha
now i am not so urgent
i am 90% chinese and 10% urgent
no emergency no urgent
no emergency no urgent
mild is mild
now i am 100% grime
on my restaurant’s glass.
no urgent no urgent
have a
nice day
Anne Gvozdjak
bloodied fingers and shattered glass and my shadowed reflection
slicing itself to pieces / asking what part of myself i’ve destroyed
again just to be swept back into another paranoia of never waking up
from the nightmare i had last night / sheets shredded and torn
and tangled into knots around the fury in my fingertips / hear my sins
scream holes through the bedroom walls / ablaze with the terrible ecstasy
of a reckless self-demolition as i grind the blame out of my bones
and cleanse away every stain of the words my fault / drown me in
another hallucination of the disembodied echo of a thing called rage
suffocating itself between my ribs until my body tears open in front of my
eyes / laying bare these violent hollows of my hysteria / chasms
of sudden vicious raging to unleash anything / everything / i have
just to strike down the bitter aching deep within / and forever rid
of the guttural addiction to again and again purge me clean of my emptiness
Kelsey Chen
1.
There is a particular kind of haunting
that happens in fiber-glass cables under the sea,
but that is another kingdom, not mine--
my genealogy has no atlantis.
The cloud is the residence of the intermittently forsaken
because there is something strange and comforting
in the insistent aching of censored characters and
pornographic punctuation,
something that
lingers, I think, in ones and zeros
and the empty frames of matrices
that are not so different from the empty frames of a Chinatown fenced and eaten, land speculation a carnivorous thing that drove us away for parking lots and towers that are knocked down by airplanes gone askew in their continental pathways.
Our promised land is, after all,
a distillation of yawns, piss, and tears that never made it to the ocean,
where the pixel is a discrete unit and there is no need for
something as complex as
pain because the incense has been
burnt and
our ancestors are already mourning.
There is no need for something called forgiveness
when all this has been said, and more,
in an infinity of self-replicating digits
that grieve in silence across the pacific.
2.
fill in the blank:
______ your sadness.
A. 洗掉
B. 吃
C. murder
D. all of the above
I cannot circle the right answer if
you do not know what it means.
The lines of my palm are a polynomial function
and an old man told me you will never escape your oscillating body
even if the oceans are drained.
3.
I wonder what would happen if you put a candle in a black hole. Some sort of vortex would emerge, I imagine, an implosion of light particles that travel in chiasmatic orbits.
4.
On the left side of my ribs I have tattooed the Chinese characters 革命.This means “revolution.” In China this phrase carries an intractable stigma—the characters call to mind Mao’s Cultural Revolution and the mass murder and destruction that came with it. So I am careful to keep it covered when I walk the streets of Beijing. This is also the reason why, when my parents first saw the ink on my ribs, they paled the same shade of the flour that sits in our kitchen cabinet. What do you mean by this, child? they asked me. They asked what are you waiting for? I said I don’t know. I don’t know.
革命 is a strikingly beautiful phrase that does not betray the horror of its historical application. In one sense it means revolution. In another, it means to put your life on the line. In one sense I want a political revolution. The sort that will instantly and tracelessly wipe this world of its wounds. But that kind of revolution can never, will never, happen. In another sense, I want to put my life on the line. In every moment, a revolution. A personal, small revolution.
I am waiting for a revolution, I think. That’s what I might be waiting for.
I am waiting for the future, I think. In each moment. That’s what I might be waiting for.
Yesterday a friend told me they were born on the cusp of revolution. I asked which revolution. He said the cusp of revolution is the time cusping the Scorpio-Sagittarius cluster, silly. Not a real revolution.
I, too, was born on the cusp of Revolution. Not the time cusping the Scorpio-Sagittarius cluster, but a real revolution. I was born at a time of my mother’s revolt. But my birth quickly quelled that rebellion. Like a tide, I washed out onto the hospital bed and like a tide, the revolution washed over and out of her.
That was my inheritance.
Not our inheritance.
The first thing we do when we come into the world is wound our mothers. In order to come into life we must first indelibly wound our mothers. That is a pattern that is then continued for the rest of our lives. We continually wound our mothers, our parents, the ones that love us. With our unintentional carelessness with our bodies and words. We are all just kids.
We do not realize that a cut on our body could murder our parents, so we play and we fall again and again and again. And they are not there to catch us every time but they are always there to see the aftermath. They are always there to nurse the wound, oblivious of the fact that it has not healed, no, it has only transferred from body to body, with love.
Genealogical transmittance is bidirectional. That, we should never forget.
2:16 AM - Hunger (November)
Linda Liu
In bed, phone screen glowing
Youtube, fingers typing:
“Asmr fried chicken”
...
Bad idea.
Stomach grumbling, brain cells floating--
Bite.
Crunch.
Swallow.
Salivary glands exploding--
It’s pulling me in, it’s dragging me
down...
Why do I keep watching?
Just keep scrolling——--
——Uh-oh.
“Mozzarella cheese pull”
Damn it.