I mailed you a letter because you said
the art of writing is dead but I know
how to twist words into sculptures still small
enough to fit in the post box. I hope
you read what I wrote. I opened my heart
and sent you a poem. Someday when you’re old
you will show your grand kids the written art
some hopeless romantic girl undersold,
prefaced with ‘it isn't anything great but
maybe it will lead you to understand.’
I never claimed to be the best but my
head is full of cosmos and volcanoes
begging to explode black holes on paper as
relics pressed between pages like a dried rose.

The already preset disposition of being Asian.
I must've been accidentally mixed in the wrong laundry basket,
because they tell me I'm white-washed.
Born with foreign looks but a native tongue
my birth certificate calls me *****
I would be the blonde-hair-blue-eyes of a country on the other side of the world
but here,
I'm still considered an immigrant
in my own home.

When you are Asian-American,
you are also the stereotypes that trail your title.
You are sushi
You are jackie-chan
You are karate
You are good grades
You are the slant-eyed pignose supporting character
WELCOME TO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
LAND OF THE FREE, HOME OF THE BRAVE
WHERE UNITED IS TRANSLATED AS DISCRIMINATED!
BUT DON'T GET IT TWISTED, ASIANS ARE PRETTY COOL!

Excuse me straight misogynist white male,
your Godzilla type of Asian,
or my culture?
When have I
as an individual
played a character in these quote on quote American movies?
Hmm oh yeah, that's right!
I was in Fast and Furious!
Didn't I also make an appearance in Harry Potter as the cute innocent
Cho Chang?
If this also applies to you can I please have your autograph
because I'm pretty sure I've seen you star in every movie
I've ever seen.
Or at least your people, right?

Don't try to tone down the damage
I already know I'm categorized in this Asian fetish
that all you'll ever see in me is rice and anime,
nothing more, nothing less.
And if I were to become an author instead of a doctor,
I'd be considered as a social unnorm
a disgrace
but isn't it already disgraceful that in this bleached-colors world
I have lost touch of my heritage,
my roots replaced with a skeleton idea of who I'm supposed to be
I wear a mask.

My friends speak to my mom in their native language.
Sitting there,
disoriented,
lost in pronunciation
I ask my mother why she did not teach me her natural tongue.

She says,
"because you are American."
And I still do not believe her.

Angels hailed that solemn hour
The breath of man transferred
To machine, a little more
Each decade, until
Bioeugenics, discrimination

Against organics, the weak
Without cognitive implants
Heavens dissolved in tongues of fire
AIs owned stocks, corporations
Became the property of supercomputers

Concede then the victory, old humanity
To your children, not your natural heirs
But the inheritors of your ruin
Of your bioweapons, Ebola
Of your hypocrisy, climate change

Of your wealth seeking, inequality
Not yet my son’s distracted eyes
Could meet his fate among the
Congress of Quantum entities
These were the turning years

Where man’s destiny ended
The rise of Cyborgs, Enhanced humans
And the monopoly of a more
Advanced civilization breaking away
From the old, evolution’s funny
Little Epilogue, hardly a surprise
To the transhumanistic philosophers.

When She looked at him,
He was busy trying to make sense of the world.
And when He finally freed himself from his chains and searched for Her,
She was gone.
A silent whisper in the treacherous night,
Lost forever among the stars.

I take these little pills
I laugh and smile
And don't sleep all the time anymore
But they don't bring you back
And there's no pill for heartbreak

You never feel like you're being used until they stop.