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lost history
By Anna Li Sian
I’m rehashing flashbacks like blast from the past
of solemn songs sung by my sisters
Muslim gongs rung under
Reversed skies, rehearsed by
the warmth of backwards winters
no blizzards, just geckos and sticky lizards
floating like feathers
remember December in sticky weather?
Do you remember the time?
I remember, even when high school history class
textbooks bypass a people, condense a culture into a line or two about
the Philippine-American war and even then, emphasize “American”
there’s no room in the classroom for
stories of rebellion, re-colonization labeled as “liberation”
losing lives in someone else’s war for false promises of freedom
stealing resources and selling it back for twice the price
no, students be consumed by the fumes of apathy
made pretty by the biased disseminators of the nation’s information
what’s the 411 hun?
For one, I’ll leave your cerebral a little less feeble
for one, I bear too heavy a conscience
the conscious are few
with consciousness lies truth
truth lies in a gutter run over by lies,
misconceptions and stereotypes
by “go home, immigrant,” doused with diatribes
and subtle ignorance like “what areyou?”
What am I?
What the fuck are you talking about?
I’ll teach you a little lesson your school curriculum left out.
I am not your pretty little hello kitty ching chang china doll
with Chun Li buns and karate kicks
I don’t rock school girl outfits or model for import cars
I don’t avoid eye contact, or giggle with a pitch that only dogs
can hear
I don’t pose with peace signs for sticker booth pictures
I don’t get my hair straightened when it’s already straight
Or dye it red to black to red and back until I forget
the hue my ancestors knew
I am a product of plump mangoes and dirt roads
water buffalos and Spanish clothes
funny accents and flip flops
reconfigured to mingle with
New York City hip hop
I am a product of words you’ve never heard of
And I’m not here to preach it the mic
I am just a poet who perceived a little light
But they only see me as non-white
And they cloned my face and posted it on pages of pornos
asking “is your pussy slanted too?”
and I became a fake creation of male imagination
an Asian flower to be devoured, who begs to give head
a pasty-faced geisha in a skimpy kimono who’ll bone ‘ya
and call you master in bed
They say “how you doin’ China Doll, cmon baby, wassup, you
don’t speak English?”
I speak English better than you do, motherfucker, and how’s THIS for China
Doll cuteness?
Sticks and stones may break my bones but sometimes
The wrong words can hurt in places
Sticks and stones
Can’t
Reach
today I am the lone poet on the six train
clutching my repressed retorts in a closed fist
and spitting them out like confetti onto thirsty paper
my dreams may be deferred but they are still unyielding
I rub these wounds in hopes of healing
© Anna Li Sian |
