asian
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Hiding from other children
Once a precious treasure
Glistening dumplings
Seafood soups
Marinated meats
Tempt breaks my heart,
As we are forced to part.
I abandon myself.
Steam pours from thin shoulders
Dimly lit, white tile reflecting moonlight
Beams hit my skin
Slowly, ever so gentle,
Revealing to me a world both unknown
and a truth that scalds
Almond Eyes,
searching for a piece of herself,
in a round-eyed town.
Her identity uncertain,
I am an American citizen
Born and raised a southwestern Virginian
A member of the USA's dominion
Yet people are still of the opinion
They say my people are descendants from a dragon and a fairy
who gave birth to 100 children
who later became known as the Vietnamese people.
My origins are a reflection of my ancestors.
Armies of men fall at the feet of Beauty, and we're taught that women are weak.
Men watch their brothers transform into monsters, and we're taught that real men don't cry.
History Changed But Fate Stayed the Same
The world can be cruel sometimes,
But bare with me, it’s true
ABCs
I remember when I first learned my ABCs.
A stands for apple
B stands for bird
when is it my body?
when you’re reaping the color of my skin
reducing my culture into a category that only accepts
squinty eyes and figures so thin
I am of a white sun against a blue sky, and a blue star against a white expanse. My body is a legacy that spans centuries, continents, cultures, and creeds, sustained by lo mein and latkes alike.
I was having lunch with a friend,
Cheese pizza, Mountain Dew, and fries.
A group of guys sitting nearby,
Were laughing aloud at the school cafeteria.
One of them approaches and sitting next to me
He says,
I’m an American,
through and through,
but an American with a hyphen too.
An ode to my culture, customs,
and ethnic ties,
yet critics say my hyphen divides,
causes racial tension,
master and slave, alike moon and tide,
seven lunar orbs, dance in night
in tandem with waves, enamoring
all earthly gods and taming evil spirits.
like how the oceans envelops
island shores, how the stars
are placed like mosaic tiles
by mountain tops, like how the sun
rises again every morning,
santan flowers border all
around my household, like gargoyles
protecting a home, sharp red petals
acting as thorns for evil spirits.
Google Translate ‘yaya’ from Filipino to English:
governess, nurse, maid (show less translations)
i cannot remember the first day i met you,
For a very long time I looked down on myself
for pursuing my dreams instead of the wealth
My brother, an engineer
My sister, a nurse
And I...
I am...
not the lawyer you wanted to see
Little eyes, Asian eyes
I didn't know the window to my soul
Told such lies
Not on the whole
These eyes of mine are small
Yes, but that's not me
Assumptions from all
On who I must be
At Last
Once upon a time
There lived an average girl.
She was Asian and American.
She excelled in high school,
And didn’t care for school.
She made them proud, her parents.
America,
The Beautiful?
Home of the enslaved,
Where those who are brave,
Are said to have no brain,
Where freedom of speech is limited,
Yeo boh say yo?
I say into the phone,
Quickly and quietly
But still the room grows silent
and I wonder
Part I
The very inspiration began on a seventh day
Of the eight month of the year 2013 AD
A class by a master on translations
Triggering him to reveal a historic place
Unknown much, a place so great
We make your shiny TVs and your shiny phones.
We make your pretty shoes and stitch your pretty clothes.
You pick and choose what pieces of our cultures you adopt
And you sneer at what you don't understand
A Banana
The names they called me
When I acted white
Even though I’m Asian
Haha
The sound I made
When I remembered
That I’m ¼ White anyways
Hapa
Not quite the right mix
Bleached hair, sleeveless shirt,legs covered with a not-long-enough skirt.She’s bad, that girl.Rotten to core.You don’t have to get to know her,just look at what she wore
I go to school, isn't it obvious?
Sixteen year old girl with a backpack,
It's pretty clear to see.
I go to classes, then lunch, then class again,
Hop the bus, go home, do homework go to bed.
If you really knew me
you would know that
I look at people the way you read a book.
If you really knew me
you'd see the way I tense up when
I think of when I was kid
young and naive.
Ousted by my own friend who left me for sports
and the other who left for Arkansas.
I remember the gravel I used to sit on
What would you change?
What would I change?
I'd chage the way peole think,
Get rid of the unnceccasary judgement.
Who needs that?
Certainy not we.
We have the power to learn,
If I could change the world,
I would abolish prejudice;
Or the bumpy past,
That created it.
No race more superior,
No size more supreme.
Only happiness,
And positivity gleamed.
Once, a boy goaded on by his friends
yelled “BORDERHOPPER” in my face.
(I must have a very large stride, then,
to have hopped the Pacific Ocean.)
To be fair, it was middle school.
No father
mother here
but really there
I am here
but really
where?
nature
or really nurture?
I'm tired of these fucking stereotypes
dictating how I feel and act
I shouldn't like English
I should be petite and quiet
I should study, study, study
Well I fucking done
finito, over it
I finally realized to open my eyes
just to find myself blinded by the minds of the stereotypical
I never dreamed of a scheme
such that I would believe to achieve
I once had a spirit,
That would cry, Livid.
A soundless screamer,
A sleepless dreamer.
A cowardly warrior,
A body-less barrier.
A sharp taste of rum,
A native tongue.
When the soul spoke,
Who’d know the color of my skin presents so much ambiguity in society?
A different angle in the light of the city
What am I today?
For the historic family trees of America remain hallow at my name.
