warning: mentioning of suicide

This apology
is long overdue,
but I’ve been meaning to say
I’m sorry.

I’ll never forget
when you were sitting next to me.
Mom was in the room too
and you were browsing on your phone

with a smile on your face
until
your
world

shatters.
Panic.
You panic,
and I don’t understand.

Mom’s attention is still on the television
as you begin to cry.
“What’s wrong?” I ask,
but my harsh tone seemed more like a demand.

“Evan!”
You scream,
and it finally catches mom’s attention.
“Evan’s in the hospital!”

“*****,” I begin,
feeling powerless
at the sight of
your bright red face.

I can’t stand
seeing you cry.
I am curious to know
why—

“He’ll be fine.”
Mom intervenes,
voice gentle
despite the sharp underlying tone

most single parents have
when addressing
their crying child.
“Do they know what happened?”

“No,” you respond,
and you’re now finding it
difficult
to breathe.

I look to mom for guidance
as I want her to know
that it’ll be okay.
“It can’t be that serious.”

Your phone pings.
I’ll never forget
how the color
drained from your face,

jaw slack in horror.
It takes your body a second
as the shock runs through the nerves in your body,
and you sob into your palms.

“What?!” Mom screams.
We both jump.
You reply,
voice hardly above a whisper,

“H-he tried to…”
Your voice falls lower.
“He tried to—“
Mom’s visage softens.

“Honey,” she says, holding her arms out
for a hug.
“Now, what happened
with your little friend?”

With your lips muffled against her shoulder,
you reply,
“He tried to **** himself.”
Your whole body quivers with sobs.

I remain
seated
in the same place,
ignoring the tears running down my cheeks.

“I’m sure he’ll be fine, *****.”
Mom joins in.
“Yes honey, he’s young.
He’ll come back.”

It takes a while to convince you,
but then you finally come to.
I remember smiling and thinking,
Yeah, he’ll get better later.

__
“You were wrong!”
You scream at me
nearly a week later
one morning.

I jump,
unaware of what happened.
I’m surprised,
seeing you so upset.

“What did I do?!”
I shout, confused
as I hold up my hands
to mask my face from you.

“You. Lied!”
You shout, sobbing into your palms
wearing your childhood nightgown
printed with purple stripes, now faded after so many washes.

“*****?”
I ask,
and I reach my arms
out for a hug.

You slap my wrists away,
glaring at me
through the tears
in your eyes.

Stunned, I pause,
and you respond,
“They took him off life support today!
You lied!"

I tried to apologize then,
and it took a few tries
until you said you accepted them.
However, apologies will never make it the same.

cw: ****** assault, assault, abuse, slurs, chronic pain

It began with
you doing his laundry,
shouting back at him,
“Not an ounce of romanticism!”

Swears follow after
beneath your breath.
I stand
in the same hallway

watching your shadow
stretch through the doorframe
of the laundry room,
water gushing from the machine

into a
cacophonous
roar.
I wait,

but I remain
unnoticed
as you turn, legs bare,
and go into the bedroom.

I return to my own bedroom,
separated by the
war zones of the
empty pantry and cluttered den—

unpaid bills lay
strewn around,
the stuff he brought in from
when he first ruined our lives

sitting,
watching,
collecting
dust.

Lottery tickets
with their surfaces scratched away
and forgotten, just like
your dreamscapes.

I pause,
thirsty.
I dare to
step outside,

but I stop
when I hear your moans.
I’ve had enough experience to
after a few seconds

deduce if
the moans
are from
forced *** or chronic pain.

He laughs.
It’s the former this time.
I pause,
shaking.

Does it not
infuriate you
like how it does
to me?

You’re my mother,
and I’m your daughter.
He’s your boyfriend,
and he’s both of our assaulters, abusers.

When you first asked me
if I was okay with you
finding me a “new dad,”
you never asked me if it was okay if he

It’s just been
“One more month,
one more month,”
for years.

I’m so tired of your
performative screams
because we both know from experience
if you don’t scream well enough,

he’ll
beat you
and seek me
instead.

People from outside
said you're supposed to teach me
to be a woman
instead of a ****.

But I am instead
left alone,
asking,
"Does my mom still love me?"

What a romantic play you've put on--
to manage to fool
those who love you the most
certainly isn't easy.

Hungry for something
I have never seen before,
my eager eyes scour
pages of books.

Opening several books,
I marvel at the lives and stories
of true artisans of their time:
Xiao Hong, Joy Harjo, and William Faulkner.

I stare at each page,
trying to digest
every word
and imitate their style;

however, my mind draws blank
the moment the blank document
reflects back into
my empty mind.

Suddenly
intrusive thoughts rise
to the forefront of
my consciousness.

“How dare you think
you could ever become
a hero like them
without a single reader?”

I finally surmise that
I’m not a poet,
artist, or
author.

I don’t have the
soulless apartment flat
in the middle of a bustling city,
finding muse in every corner of life.

Nor do I have the freedom
to explore outside’s
blank landscapes
as there’s a spike of missing women reports here.

Instead,
I live in my empty childhood home,
bedroom walls plastered with heroes from video games
as I hide away from my mom’s boyfriend.

Afraid of both the outside and inside world,
I remain still.
I am no writer.
I am no hero.

Despite suffering from illness,
****** assault from a once trusted individual,
being told I do not belong in my own country,
and shoved away by supposed peers and professor at my institution,

I remain.
As steadfast as ever,
protecting my place, country, and
family.

No matter how exhausted
or how shattered my current frame of reality may be,
I never cheat on my schoolwork or exams
like the same peers who belittle me.

Me, who is there:
patiently waiting,
always the last,
seeking help after another misstep;

Nonetheless,
diligently remaining on track,
amidst the others descended from the Esteemed,
Who continue the cyclic tradition of oppression.

While I acknowledge that
the absence of refuge
for the trodden
has existed for many centuries,

and even myself as of now,
I understand it to be ill-gotten privilege
I may have stolen
from another applicant more promising than me;

I remain in
This Place
amongst books
and the International Royalty.

Beginning from
such atrocities
in both blood, home, and later within the educational institution,
I never had any interest in making a name for myself.

I did not apply to college because I was told to—
it is because I was predominantly told the opposite.
Facing the shouting and dismissals
from those closest in blood and esteemed teachers at school.

In this time of a loosening socioeconomic hierarchy,
finally exposing the Freedoms of this Nation
Our Ancestors could never dream of,
We Must Remain, Learn, and Fight!

Revel in how
Unfulfilled we are,
Remain Loyal to your well-established Ideals,
and Fight!

In a world where
the value of life varies:

the inherent
priceless value of life

is snuffed in a single moment
or growing dim over the passage of illness;

taken by the individual
or someone else,

flickers away as if there was nothing there in the first place—
How do you remain standing?

Women dress like birds,
prim and proper,
ranging from
bell shape to slender.

There can be
blush on their cheeks or
soft and vibrant feathers, yet
all their hollow bones are easy to break.

They are raised in the wild,
learning to defend themselves
from both natural and manmade threats
until the pretty women are inevitably caught.

She can’t escape.
You coo, “Struggle harder, you ugly thing.”
She bites your fingers through the net, so
you toss her smaller frame against the ground.

“Women,” you scoff, deducing she must be on her period.
You know in your mind that she’s special.
She’s an exotic breed currently popular on the market.
As a local man, you’re eager to **** out your culture.

Once she is shipped to the underground,
she bounces from owner to owner,
her once vibrant plumage
now grimy.

Once, she catches a glimpse of her daughters,
and they make eye contact, yet they remain
silent
to her call.

She realizes
she doesn’t smell of herself anymore
or where she comes from—
only of the dogs that made her bleed.

Her daughters
wish their mother would apologize
for bringing them into a world where
the woman is contained by men.

However,
did their mother ever
do anything wrong?
The daughters were simply a task.

“Time to move on.”
The mother surmises,
locking away her feelings as
her next shift begins.

You stand
outside of the cage
peering between the bars with your dark eyes.
“She’s too old for me to enjoy now.”

You sigh,
casting a glance to her daughters.
“I’ll feed her to my snake.
These two girls must be fertile by now.”

cw: abuse

I dared to leave my bedroom
because today was your birthday.

Despite him saying it to you last night as he...
I wanted to be the first one this year who wished you happy birthday.

I heard you while I was standing in the hallway.
He told you I was there, but you still said:

“Just get me a
bright red thong.”

Why did you say that?
Why do you let him stay?

He left today just like any other
despite it being your birthday.

I’m tired of playing ignorant
and avoiding the topic in conversation

of making you food
that instead ends up in his mouth

of him feigning a crippling injury
while the drug-resistant infection consumes you

of him groaning in pain from those same “injuries”
while he beats us for writhing in pain from our own chronic illnesses

I realized
when he ordered pizza for himself last night:

He wants
the

food and girls
fresh

just like the
bright red birthday thong between your legs.

Your birthday is just
another excuse for him.