You Won’t Brush me Away

May I float in salted water with lemon and yellow peppers?

I can smell and touch

I will make sure you know I am alive

Do I dream of momentary ecstasy?

sure I do

I forge sorrow with a spirit of life

I dissect blood yet not flesh to place tissues with white orchids

Maybe I once stood in front of freedom and happiness

but tripped —— into the cage of false freedom and false happiness

life and death may intertwine

yet liberty and imprisonment have no square in common

So I left

left with a yellow scar on the left side of my neck

Mama tried to sew it, it wouldn’t stop bleeding

but when I watched it drip and let it be

it hurts–

it hurts when needles sewn our lips, lips ofmy sisters and brothers

it hurts when you killed us and buried my soul

Had you left us inside—

the Forbidden City?

how you dare? the lies and

sacrifice and wars

sicken life’s divinity

where the lanterns glowed?

it glows yet in shadow

now lurks in the dark

the ancient whispers of

the Great Wall no longer

echo and the stones let

alive no story of

defiance, the modern

maze with no dragons roar

No vestige of

any dynasty

any metropolis

or a home–

“A home for us

We are the people of this land.”

So don’t

don’t try to stain my body stain me stain my soul

I loathe all your entities

So I breathe

now scream next to my ears

cause you will never whisper to me

Scream to attest your greed and lust and desire for power

you will never whisper and brush me away

me, not even traces of me.