i want
to skip straight to our 70th wedding anniversary i want flowers pressed into the pages of my notebooks from my 20's before we broke up, moved cross-country, and met again at a reading i was a broke resident still writing poetry you were still a workaholic with a new fiancée we still laugh about how stricken i looked when you saw me, how obvious it was to choose each other again i want a honeymoon in your arms sweat mingling and itching where our skin rubbed against each other's in the dark the sky was too cloudy and close to cities for stars so we wished on passing airplanes, our hearts beating like confetti shallowly, merrily, everywhere i want a beat up Jeep in the driveway that we drove from coast to coast one August you moved in on my mouth but missed and kissed the backside of my head thank God no one else saw the way i swerved when you did i want years of disagreeing over paint colors, religion, and kids over where the dog should live and if we should invest in vacations with the in-laws or retirement; i want to crawl in bed, kiss your forehead in forgiveness i want history ours with page-long footnotes and glossaries filled with our secret language that survived the trauma of courtship, parenthood, and age flaking with use, glowing with meaning a thing worthy of its own museum
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so i know i said
suffering isn't necessary to live a meaningful life, yet; and i said he didn't need to cheat to teach me how to love, and yet; and kicking me between my legs for fighting my brother was excessive, at best, yet; and describing the shape of my eyes when i tried to learn the sound of my voice for the first time was unjust, and yet; and my physics teacher didn't need to mock my attendance record in front of the class when kids made me dread waking up much less going to school and pretending to laugh, and yet; and all the times people hurt me flashed back when i slept so that my eyes drooped over my tests and risked my scholarship and all the second chances i've been given, and yet; i want to think it all was worth it when this morning she said she wanted to die i knew to say, "and yet," july fourth is not a celebration here in China
at first, i was relieved to be relieved of pretending that my country fights for chinks, homos, sluts, me but then was stunned too by the plodding normalness of the day no one more drunk on prepaid patriotism on this tuesday than any other the sky was unlit by fireworks streets unpainted with red, white, or blue outside was the usual rain, exhaust, beery breath of the huang pu river tracing a lopsided smirk into indifferent streets july fourth feels safe here comfort is rice wine wrinkling my peripheral vision as black boy holding a pen downtown & girl hitting a durham bar take a shot no one hears anywhere 'round the world today, someone asked me if i am from here, if my parents are from here, & where the hell then am i from anyway there are inkstains left in
all the places i've been & each time i clean my mess i make another of soap suds & giggles diluted dark puddles shrugged apologies that know messes are inevitable & likely already in the making by the way i'm falling backwards the way i look in the mirror after a fitful night a mistake i only know how to apologize for Come with me to China. Sit across from me with a mug of loose-leaf green tea cradled in your hands. Feel the insistent humidity, the sour stink of tofu, the distant cough of a cook taking his last puff between shifts. We are in Shanghai learning how to tell and—perhaps more importantly—listen to stories.
The Journey. The "Storytelling & Storylistening" project started back in May 2017. First, I was at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill studying behavioral neuroscience & trying to sort out my own brain in doing so. A few weeks later, I was at the Yale Writers' Conference at Yale University, studying my craft & laughing a lot with people who loved stories as much as I do. I rediscovered how to read for and with pleasure. I wrote about traumatized ghosts and cactus people. I called myself a writer and, for the first time in years, really believed it. Now, in the last leg of my Exploration Summer, we have crossed oceans and timezones to arrive at the Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine in southeastern China. Since coming here, I've gotten stuck with more acupuncture needles than I can count, struggled to order food in Mandarin, practiced traditional Chinese medical techniques on my classmates, meditated on a rooftop, and spilled a variety of liquids on myself. I've laughed so hard that I cried and wanted to cry so badly that I laughed. As the end of my summer draws nearer, I'm finally sitting down to think a little. This poemblog & its readers are witnesses to my reflection. |
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