Pacing, waiting, wasting time
My mother sings her battle chant through the monitor’s blinks and beeps
Anxiety chokes me between each heart beat
The drunk driver's headlights still beaming in my brain
She needs blood

Shhh, shh she shivers
Awaiting her share for the rationed ruby’s warmth
Her skin worn from years of a mother’s service
Lies loosely on her pale, weak face
A crime to humanity
Erasing the color out of this masterpiece
Yeah mom, you’re glowing

I try and quell the noisome cries in that silent hospital room
As she rests with her soft beauty
Her tissues exposed
Wailing into the air,
Like a banshee’s envious shriek
The warm hands I held,
The warm hands that hugged
The warm hands that wiped away my tears and told me it’s okay
Forgotten
In the freezing chill that blankets my mother
Her body fatigued
Her rips and tears of flesh
Squeezed of all available life
She bleeds a clear liquid
Clear
With no color-filled story of the future
If only you could accept my crimson gift
I can only pray for a saint in disguise
To donate their life

I try to hold on, but the white ghost flits away
A last breath.
I kiss her forehead, wipe away her tears to tell her it’s okay.
She needs blood

I learned at age 8 the colors of the rainbow
Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet
I stared at each picture, curious of the colors
Mrs. Ferguson said that together, we make a beautiful rainbow
And I memorized it.

I learned at age 13 grade that I was gay
Each boy slow danced with their girl
I stood in the corner watching
Isolated, ashamed, in the dark
And I memorized it.

I learned at age 16 that my parents didn’t accept me
Battered and bruised
I could feel the spit of Confucius on my wounds
I could feel the yin and yang twisting my spirit
I could feel the burns from the flames from my ancestral shrine
And I memorized it.

I learned at age 20 how the other men felt
Blogs and wikihows lied to me as they told me to find solace in the gay bars
Their eyes followed me like I was a hanging chicken at a street booth
Disgusted
Drunk men announcing their Asian fetish to me
As if I were a dish to prove their exotic tongues
The rice queens sitting proudly on their thrones
As we, the subjects, are shackled and exposed
To their adventurous acceptance
And I memorized it.

I learned at age 23 the colors of the rainbow
Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet
As I stared at the Pride Flag, I remembered
Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet
I stared
Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet
They stared
Red, Orange, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet
Red, Orange, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet
Red, Orange, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet
Yellow
And I memorized it.