Category: Works

It’s an illusion.

It’s an illusion that we are apart.

It’s an illusion that I am here, and you are there, and our hearts beat slower alone.

It’s an illusion that behind the screens we can hide from the sadness of our souls and share only the sunny parts.

I can cry onstage too.

I can cry on Zoom.

I can cry even when there is a bright smile on my face.

I can cry even when the tears refuse to make themselves known to the earth.

It’s an illusion that we are not who we really are, when we are rectangular,

When we need to navigate our interactions with buttons

When we need to mute and unmute ourselves, consciously

Unlike when we are in the same room together.

It’s an illusion that this is not real,

It’s an illusion that this ever is

We can be together even when we are apart

We can be apart even when we are together

It is in moments like this that I realize many things that used to matter do not matter anymore

And for good reason, and it will be fine to go forward like this

Because there is no way back anyway, and whatever life hands to us

We will take it like the champions that we don’t usually know ourselves to be

And take it for as long as life allows us to.

It’s an illusion that this will forever last

It’s an illusion that there will ever be an end

Đi đâu? Cuối ngày rồi,
những con đường đã trở thành quá cũ.
Đến đây, tôi nhìn thấy một ngôi nhà xây năm 1745,
tường sơn vàng, viền xanh lá,
bên một căn nhà kho đỏ sậm
với những khung cửa sổ nghiêng và kính vỡ,
như thể thời gian đã ngả vào đó
từ rất lâu rồi.
Tôi nghe tiếng xe từ phía xa lộ,
gần rồi xa, không dừng lại
như lịch sử không dừng lại
như chúng ta đã trễ hẹn với ngày mai.

Tôi tới, tôi im lặng
ngắm ngọn lửa từ từ dâng lên
trong một chiếc lò tự xây
của một người làm gốm
đến sống ở đây hồi đầu tháng mười một
sau khi bão tuyết tạt ngang bang Texas
và cô nhận ra mình không biết cách sống chung với mùa đông như thế nào.

Nên cô học cách tự sưởi ấm mình từ Montana,
và tìm đến ngôi nhà xưa cũ này ở Massachusetts,
học cách sống với những xoay vần đổi thay của vùng đất bốn mùa.

They said – it was not about the color of your skin,
or the fact that you were a woman, none of those things;
your death was simply
a tragedy, an accident, a sad coincidence
caused by someone with a mental illness.

Such an insult to your truth, to what it means to have a mental illness,
to your being an Asian woman in a world where you were seen as a woman, an Asian,
a person who was not white, not male, not anything
for whom the media so readily provides an excuse.
They choose the narrative that brings them the least discomfort,
not one that shows the darkness of the world in which you can be executed
by someone who had the audacity to claim his act of murder was about lust.
The killer lusted for blood, the same red blood in his veins,
only beneath a different appearance from his.

And yet so many of them are saying, no,
that is the self-victimization mentality.
They’re saying that to you who literally were the victim of a hate crime,
whose life was taken away – not even because you were at the wrong place at the wrong time,
but because the murderer invaded your space,
as if this earth were not big enough for everyone regardless of their gender, and race,
and everything else that makes us different and makes us one.

You are dead. Many of you died. Many of you will die, if they keep breeding the lies,
convincing themselves and others that this could have happened to anyone,
that they choose to not see colors when one of the colors were red, that of your blood
spilling over their head, their conscience – does everyone not have one?, their rhetoric.
But the truth is this:
this. is. a. hate. crime.
this. is. a. murder.
and anyone who claims otherwise is an accomplice
in an act against humanity, against what we all want for our country,
our children, our future.

And now every time I walk out on the street, I would wonder
if my mask and clothes were enough to conceal me, to protect me:
my woman’s body, my Asian skin, my identity
that should matter and not matter just as much as anybody’s,
but it doesn’t:
in Atlanta, just the other day,
people who looked just like me were murdered
just because of how they looked.

Eventually you learn
how to feel your way in the dark. Everything looks the same,
but feel different; unlike the usual days
when all looked different yet felt the same
as if time never moved, neither space
nor you in it.

In the dark you start to remember
where you came from, before your mother
heard you cry
(you sounded like a child who had strong opinions
and an abundance of tears
and something resembling the other side of the gate.)
It feels cathartic, like redemption
from an opportunity unchosen
where you make the best of it.

There is an unspoken word of grace
when you bow down on your knees, and legs,
your forehead touching the cold floor,
your heart shaking as if every beat were a prayer
that would somehow be answered, as if
your faith had been restored.

It still worries you that if you didn’t believe enough
god wouldn’t hear your voice, and how sad would that be – to carry a voice unheard,
an identity unbeknownst,
a lifetime unchanged
by a power larger than yourself
manifesting itself in so many ways
even your darkest doubts gradually turned into beliefs.

(October 21, 2018)

did you walk on this earth five hundred years ago?
did you hear the voices of the ancestors?
did you taste the sweat from long journeys across the continents?
did you write the words that would later be misinterpreted?

did you ask questions because the answers were never enough?
did you assemble your own truth among others’ lies?
did you look for the things you could never find?
did you meet those you were always meant to meet?

did you say anything you truly meant?
did you do everything you could ever do when you said you did?
did you believe enough to take a leap of faith?
did you see in your heart that which resembled a heart?

did you seek to be understood or be loved?
did you feel what it was like to have said goodbye without knowing it?
did you realize the way everything turned into something exactly the same?
did you know that you too one day would become someone different?

did you love because love was all you could ever do?
did you hate because love was all you had given away?
did you know there would always be another way?
did you understand the meaning of that moment that day?

not a dream – when words fall down, and the curtain closes:
hands reach out to find only remnants of days
from many nights ago, when breath used to be faster
like that of a monster being chased after
by one yet even bigger, scarier,
calling out in whispers, “wait
for me –”