Coffins are actually rather comfortable
plush and velvety like your Grandmothers
white church gloves.

My brother looked comfortable
the coffin fit him like the tailored suit
we only got for this occasion.

Inside his jacket was a small pocket
our rag-tag stuffed sewn up elephant
rested there with my baby brother.

Our house felt desolate
things seemed out of place
unbalanced, the dinner table
was lopsided and there was
an empty space on my bed
the size of an elephant.

I used to swear I was born in the Shire
right next to Bilbo Baggins.

Not because of the allure of being a hobbit, their squat bodies and hairy feet.
The shire was refuge from the eye of the witch king.

I would rather be an elf like Legolas with a bow of rowan wood
Arrows fletched with swan feathers, twin gold inlaid swords, and eyes keener than a hawk.

My weapons in this world are a bleeding tongue and rusted teeth
Maggot-filled reasoning, an understanding that middle earth is no more.

The Shire never happened for a ******* child.
The witch king came and raised me proud.

Fantasy is all I have left.
What could I possibly have for you?

I tried to listen to everything she said.
I tried to keep every demand in my head.
Too bad she took away from me
everything except being lonely.

Armed with a smile, the cause of my tears
She was the best at augmenting my fears.
Learning to fight isn’t so hard.
Learning to submit will leave you scarred.

Building a wall was like Right or Wrong
Right until she said so, but it only lasted so long.
Sinner or saint, it didn’t really matter,
She could always take you on and leave you in tatters.

It’s so hard to hate that which you love
But love’s too abstract for anyone of the above.
If she had given me but one good thing to keep
Perhaps then I might now be able to weep.

She always tasted like chocolate
when I kissed her, my Lily-eyed little girl.
Barbie and I shared similar names:
Tour-Guide-Daddy
Kitchen-Cook-Daddy
Girly-Laugh-Daddy
“I-Love-You-Daddy.

Dress up was an inevitable responsibility,
I was a dutiful mannequin who never stopped smiling.
Explaining to the chief my forgotten pig tails at work
had her giggling right into my arms
My little Lily. She could babble faster than a brook
and skip faster than a stone

Angels don’t truly die.
Our Lazy Boy “Rocky Road” still smells like chocolate
The creek by my station speaks just like her.
Lilies are flowers for the saddest of occasions
though they won’t ever be ignored.
Dressing myself feels foreign and I occasionally indulge in pig tails.
I am still her mannequin but my smile is no more.

What is my mother like?
Perhaps she is a bespectacled story weaver
knitting tales that stretch the imagination.
That would explain my itch to write.
What if she is a food critic wielding a pen
dishing out opinions and parrying rebuttals.
That would explain my desire for food.
What if she is a state- of-the-art Neurologist  
stretching the frontier of the dream state.
That would explain my desire for sleep.

But what if she isn’t.

What if she sleeps all day, drinks sake all night,
doesn’t miss me, forgets to kiss her husband, doesn’t have a husband
needs her sons help, is throwing away another child.
One of my siblings.
How many sisters do I not know? How many brothers have slipped between the cracks?
My yellow mother
won’t ever know me.
I don’t want to know her.

If my face were on a milk carton, who might say they know me?
Family Trees were hell, but I got Bruce Lee for a dad.
Almond-shaped eyes and yellow skin don’t flow with a white name.

Heritage was anime and soy sauce, my attempt to grasp childhood.
Khakis and button downs smother a kimono;
good thing I knew my third cousin was Jackie Chan.

Exemplary English scores, mediocre math were my sentence,
the honorable ACT presiding. All rise for the boy with no history.
Science might prove otherwise but until then. . .

Orphans don’t have happy beginnings
the birds and the bees sit better with both parties in a normal family.
Paper can’t lie, but parents sure can.

Fantasy-cursed for eighteen years
until Truth finally came, the coward.

All rise for the boy with no history.
All rise for the ******* son.

White walls washed with winter
mingle with a breeze born from ocean spray
and wind sails.

There is a smell here. Familiar, unique.
It smells clean. There is a bugambilia tree
in the center with arms outstretched
like Moses a splash of pink
that pitter patters

through streets built by Dr. Seuss.
Delectable delights demand your senses
there is white on white, a deep white
of many coats with white doors and white
walls and white houses and white sand
and white wine and white people

next to the blue sea.