“My brain hums with scraps of poetry and madness.”
– Virginia Woolf, Selected Letters
Reading Virginia,
as if I understand her morals.
“Do not,” She has written.
Analyzing Woolf,
“One cannot think well,” she says.
my tongue is dry of new air, to “…love well…”
“…sleep well…” – Nightmares mostly,
leftover sleep and a dew of overdue promises
evaporating off my lips, purging with blood.
She ended, “…if one has not dined well.”
I began: “Do Not Speak to me about Hunger;
Speak to me about War.”
Here I stay: barefooted in between
airport tile floors – they tell me,
Gritting my teeth to the dreams,
forbidden desire and will to shining silver linings.
The cruelty, unrivaled, taking parts of a dream,
leaving most to die, but she’s hungry,
they told her the war’s over, but she won’t heel,
filling a God-sized with infused useless poetry madness.
- Emilyn Nguyen
