Stubbornly - To my mother

You gave me

the crimson stories in my arteries

half of the cocoon breeding life

& the entire universe

soaked in a womb.

I contemplated the mural

craved on the flesh cave,

a scarlet civilization, when

I was the youngest me.

Ancient cliché. Every time I call you,

Mom,

I’m quoting the origin

of my life. A name that carries

every name on it.

- So I know no matter what I do,

I shall never fall.

But I never show, & I still tremble,

always, I still choke

over my blood-close fear,

no matter how you try

to translate into my spear & shield.

& you can never decode me

from my diaries

nor my red bouquets.

On the other side of life’s myth:

You fold my pajamas

into the shapes of letters

that I never get to write to you.

The bedroom of mine condenses

Into an envelope tailored out of sleep.

Every murmur in dream an address,

a postal code, a yellowing stamp.

When nights are long,

& duvet alone, you feel

you are cleaning the room

for a forever intimate ghost.

Only the room

is a creature alive. You sweep

the breathing skin of the floor;

you iron the tissues of walls clean

with loving gaze –

photos of me in kindergarten

taken down, colonized by

fractures of paints

and a wobbly kite

made when I was still near.

A chamber to every exit –

only not to me;

you only connect to me

through an invisible wire,

five minutes of weekends

where I don’t want to talk.

But you still hold on tight

to the intangible thread

trying to stitch up

my lies, my salt, my wounds

stubbornly.

2022.5.8