Nội
Because I do not know you, and I cannot see you
I want to ask a million questions
and hear a million stories…
How was your childhood?
Do you forgive your homeland?
What were your aspirations before war?
on Sundays,
my palms exude sweat from my firmly clasped hands
I compress my eyes and pray a little harder
to summon you
You never answer me.
For you, I hopelessly cling
to my belief in the supernatural.
Perhaps one day,
your apparition will appear
before my poor eyes
and tell me all I wish to know.
Can you hear my thoughts?
Or should I ask you out loud?
I am a story that begins in the middle,
a jigsaw with a thousand missing pieces, longing to assemble myself.
Help me solve this messy equation
I have not seen you in a decade
and I cannot see you for any decades more
You are a stranger that resides in me
first in my thoughts
then in the blood running through my arteries
that will stream till the day we meet again
at same ground-level
that day, you will tell me
that day, I will become whole.
I want to know you
so I can know myself
Do you know me?
Can you see me now?
Ngoại
I am selfish in the fact that I refuse to believe in your thesis because the thought of you becoming someone else after you leave me for good makes me sick
and that when you aren’t there, next to me or a phone call away, you are somewhere else in the world, reincarnated, you are someone else’s grandmother – perhaps I’ve got it all wrong and you are neither grand nor a mother, maybe you are a little boy or a father
but all that matters now is that you are within my grasp, in my world, where I can observe you praying at Buddha’s feet, at your altar of oranges, where burning incense fumes fade into the atmosphere and become one with the unseen
as you do the same.
Editors: Chris F, Charlotte C, Joyce S
Photo Credits: Sheldon Liu