Seventeen years ago,
my father named me Aijia. Ai for love, Jia for family. If you put it together, mhea said, it means “loving,” or “family loving.” Eight years later, Didi—younger brother came. His name is Qijia and I yelped in joy when I saw how it matched mine. But when I asked father about it, he responded with a Chinese proverb: Qijia, Zhiguo, Pingtianxia: Order your family, Rule your country, Bring peace to the world. When I was 8,
society showed me that I could be unstoppable. That the world could be mine to command and the moon mine to capture. That even if I overshot the moon, fingertips barely brushing past igneous, the stars would be there to catch me, engulfing me in starlight and acceptance. At 8, I called myself limitless. And at 9, they called me delicate. Through eyes instead of tongues, skimming over my raised hand, and bypassing the wrist flicking and unconscious bouncing, Scanning the room for a “strong boy,” Someone who didn’t crack under the pressure of a broken nail. At 9 years old, they told me I was weak. But, when I was 10, they showed me I could be intelligent. Gave me the taste of an A+ and the rush of that 100%. Instilled an insatiable curiosity, only satisfied by answers and worksheets. Until I knew knowledge, I did not know I was starving. At 10, I called myself savvy. And at 11, they called me scandalous. Told me that shoulders grabbed eyes like bait hooked fish, and math was made difficult by above-the-knee dresses. They taught me about spaghetti straps instead of times tables, lectured me until skirts gave way to sweatpants and camis to cardigans. At 11 years old, they reduced me down to a distraction. —After Ada Limón
Freshman year gym class I walked with Sophia along the path looping around the tennis courts. I was wearing that blue tie-dyed t-shirt, and maybe the shoes were blue too. Suddenly, a group of boys crossed our path. One of them said Sophia had some tennis balls, but I didn’t realize he was talking about our breasts for perhaps a day, or a week, but likely a month. Doesn’t wish to be commodified, or
have his hair touched (thank you,) The property has no affiliation with: terf-lite, classics-upholding, gatekeeping, one in a million diversity-hire that needs to be shushed-- (This author is: A fairytale. In a fairytale world. It is one he created to even have privilege To breathe--) Welcome everyone, tonight's play will follow the standard three-act structure: My body is stiff
unmoving tired as I pull myself out of one mold and into another. Who do I need to be today? Am I aspiring artist funny friend overachieving student closeted daughter am I emotional invisible boring plain too much Can you see me? Who looks back when I look in the mirror? Yeh-Shen’s golden slipper kept shrinking one inch
Smaller until it found its rightful owner When footbinding was in vogue in China, the most Desired shape was the three-inch golden lotus It took two years to achieve this revered shape, girls Had their feet bound from the age of five or six Sometimes binders opted for a slightly softer Shape – the butterfly or cucumber foot dear mom,
Lately I’ve been moved by how I recognize the bags under your eyes from every night I splash water on my face and look up. I hate having my photo taken because I have a hard time recognizing myself (sometimes) and it scares me (all of the time) and– I have this compulsion to write every poem in the first person and I want to ask if you think that makes me selfish. We like pistachio ice-cream and clouds. I can’t snap because you taught me to do it with my ring finger instead of the middle one. I like to tell people I am chronically late because I get it from you. I feel happy when you hug me. I know myself mom but I’m not sure I’ll ever recognize myself the way I think I’m supposed to. And I think it’s good you’ll never read this because I hate to make you sad– It was a cold, clear day in the second week of April.
I remember that it was a Saturday and that I was in the kitchen making coffee for the two of us. I remember taking the cup from me and holding it up to the light to see if it was clean. There was a smear of coffee on the rim, but the coffee inside was still clear. I remember how the light shone through the coffee and made the liquid glow. I remember how he stood over me then, and how my heart fluttered like a bird. I froze. He took the cup from my hand and threw it against the wall. It shattered into a thousand pieces and I remember watching as they fell to the floor like rain. This poem is about my sisters,
Sa’adatu, Chiamanda, & Damilola. Meaning, every girl is a pendulous rose, waiting To spill her fragrance on the face of the earth. Tell me, what is more cruel than Stripping a flower off its fragrance? I see my sister’s voice echoing into exile Because father labels her with nubility. I was the river god’s daughter,
And a daughter is nothing more than a blank page after all, waiting to be written. When Apollo was my pursuer my father, transformed me to a laurel tree. It did make great poetry of course; and there was justice too in the sense of order or what they call balance, a cleverness; Haste is not a virtue. What I would have sworn were memories, I now realize might have
been dreams, tucked into the nautilus of a fevered brain cowering in a corner.. I have been so rash my entire life. Slow living is extolled among the aged, but what else are they supposed to do? The dry mouths, gaping, and the rheumy eyes searching have seen better days. If I stretch the skin, like cellophane, across the cheekbones of my father’s face, he becomes a blur, a thing out of focus, but the clock is still ticking and we count every one. My mother will crochet her own variegated shroud to save anyone else the trouble. Her grimace masquerades as a smile, and much pain is to be given up for the sanctity of the world. The humoral issues at play have fangs, and they are planted firmly in our necks. Our moon faces are waxy and tinged with yellow. They lack the grace we believe might save us. The breviary with its colorful ribbons collects dust on the nightstand, its pages warped, but still, it moans in the dark. Everything is beyond the urgent grasp. The shivering in the night, the drenching of sweat in the day is not an omen. But it might as well be. How they threw themselves
into projects like us, poured their secret desires and fears and fetishes into our lands, our laps, all to starve their own souls of humility, and paint our faces with their reflections. Polarity might breed division but Nuance makes way for indifference And wasn’t it good men who stood by and did nothing that were the ones who let evil win? dear mom,
Lately I’ve been moved by how I recognize the bags under your eyes from every night I splash water on my face and look up. I hate having my photo taken because I have a hard time recognizing myself (sometimes) and it scares me (all of the time) and– I have this compulsion to write every poem in the first person and I want to ask if you think that makes me selfish. We like pistachio ice-cream and clouds. I can’t snap because you taught me to do it with my ring finger instead of the middle one. I like to tell people I am chronically late because I get it from you. I feel happy when you hug me. I know myself mom but I’m not sure I’ll ever recognize myself the way I think I’m supposed to. And I think it’s good you’ll never read this because I hate to make you sad– The Jury is Out
I sit in the courtroom, not sure if I’m the prosecution, or the defense, or the judge, or the jury. I may be all of them. You sit at the stand, tap the mic, and ask if this thing is on, and it is, but it’s popping and cracking and making that awful, high-pitched sound. We all cover our ears. There’s a slight murmur among the crowd. My mother bred me
In the womb of an abyss My nourishment, A healthy diet Of bits and pieces She tore off of herself And when I was birthed – Another scar on her skin – She raised me in the mandate Of the ever-evolving People. A girl, they called me, The word rising From their cold lips Like a blight, a taint, - Something to be ashamed – A child, I never was Always a girl, a girl Left on the hospital bed To unfurl And to learn the ways Of the world. Didn’t I tell you not to take it seriously?
Didn’t I tell you to put your hands in those torn pockets sometimes? Look For something in that old raincoat’s lining For something under the rugs Under your eyelid – with lashes behind – Under the iris – as it’s cut by a paper – But Keep calm darling, keep calm – It’s a paper, not a knife; once it is wet, it never cuts – Keep calm darling, keep calm Something will be found Something before the cleavers reach the lambs’ sternum Something before two malignant breasts, on the butcher block Before blood, seeping out from a freezer bag on the kitchen table: – 700 grams of me. Adios. ‘Mother’ – the word, to me,
Has always been my other An entity quite apart from me Until I saw her In that childhood picture Gaze gleaming, smile beaming – A reflection of what I’d been – A burning light among her siblings But to reconcile that image With the present I had been looking at the wrong place – Her eyes, in my eternity, have always been dead – I just had to look into her words Splayed across my skin – It is not easy to love me…I know.
There are days when I'm a storm. I will send you winds, tears and a hurricane of love, disguised and burned. And I don’t want to beg, I don't want you to come back out of pity and see me cry. I think about everything, I don't sleep. I mask my pain with irony. It's not easy being with me… I am chaos, the tree without roots. I'll be your friend and we'll sing in the rain, I will leave ,if you are kissing memories. It's not easy...trust me, I know. But that is the way I love- to the limit, to madness, to the end… So strong. And forever. I wish I had a name that looked good when it was written in blue icing on a birthday cake. The unsatisfying almost loop of the “j” The long drawn out “a” sound that everyone always tells me I say with an accent and the rushed finale of a canceled TV show that is the “k” all because of that silent “e”
I was the princess
whose blood, spurred the winds of war to Ilium, and launched a thousand ships. To my father, I was but an answer to the Gods, a piece for appeasement. To my mother, I was first a bitter question, then a bloody cry for justice; and in between the answer that came before the question I was only a daughter, Not yet Iphigenia. |