I never liked my relatives. They were too much like me,
too loud, too frank, too contrary. How can
you say that I’m getting chubby and
tell me to eat more in the same breath? The tendons
underneath the thin skin of my hands stick out like chopsticks,
like train tracks that point me home.
My popo still lives in the same apartment that my mama
grew up in; Every morning she takes the elevator
down eight stories to go hiking up the mountain
just next door. I saw my first typhoon in Hong Kong
when I was seven years old. The TV was running,
but I opted for the window, self-centred songstress, monsoon sister.
So this is what an inside storm looks like, I think.
Below, people look like polka dots. You see
the umbrellas first, and think they’re crazy second.
Did you not watch the news? Check the weather report?
What kind of people walk into this
kind of rain, this violent storm, this self-fulfilling prophecy
with only tenacity as armour?
1842, 1997. Red opium poppies bled
into the pink orchid of our flag,
democracy following. Mama left in ’96,
and I have her stories to prove it.
I am wholly a child of the diaspora; My tongue has
never bothered me, loud, frank and contrary.
Contrarily,
I have never been so much as half of two things,
but the entirety of something brand new.
These days, I fix a warm cup of Milo
before we brace the news. Mama is angry lately,
I think she sees my brother and I in their faces, in their youth.
My outrage is hereditary. My identity, in wet awnings,
slanted roads, thunderous curt syllables,
In my pride.
What other people would walk into this kind of injustice, this violent storm,
this self-fulfilling prophecy
only tenacity
as armour
only each other
as resistance.
Prayers, roll off my tongue
the way Vancouver rain drips off my umbrella.
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