minority model
Authorized under Executive Order 9066
This work is in the public domain
an asian american woman
a rejection.
trying to find her body (dissociated)
trying to find her thoughts (deformed)
trying to find her voice (choked)
trying to find her place (lost)
trying to find her role (barren)
trying to find her family (rejected)
trying to find her fears (reckless)
trying to find her past (erased)
trying to find her future (denied)
trying to find her present (empty)
trying to find her desires (unwanted)
trying to find her story (silent)
had to quit drinking, drugging, smoking,
never made it to smiling, singing, surfing, or sexing.
“sad your life”
so it would seem
so it means pulling up stakes
and moving on
weʻve always been chased from one place
to another.
never fit in.
the modern-day nomad.
you know, you can be a nomad and never move places?
you just never settle in.
never settle down.
never settle.
but then
no one will settle for you.
no one will let you settle.
settler identity is an oxymoron,
because a settler is and will always be
unsettled
so i settle for my words
captured in the fields of time
butterflies
birds
horses
too often
snakes
and wolves
before they go off on their merry way
vanishing
with a bite of me
served at a ten course
chinese banquet
where i am the guest of honor
the peking (ooops, beijing) duck
crackling sin
so many sins
like being japanese
when youʻre chinese
when youʻre japanese
when youʻre american
when youʻre settled
in an occupied land
that has occupied you
that you cannot call home
is not a house
pretty windows perfect yard
rotting at the core
rejection of the middle
class is just a fuckin lie
where
i try
to fit in
to find a place
somewhere to belong
somewhere to be wanted
to be embraced as part of
and the only part being offered
i cannot fit and i have no place
because there is no place
for the yellow face
bitch who been abused
misused
dismissed
defused
before she blows
a walking bomb
without a fuse
cause she donʻt need
no fuckin mediocre ruse
to do a halfassed job
thatʻll never make the six oʻ clock news
cuz she been clocked
and read
and knows the shade
from every passing chick
wearing grandmaʻs fuckin jade
that says she belong
to some damn club
jus cuz she got the fuckin phat blood
and i got too much blood
flowin in a flood
the wrong kind
the wrong mind
the wrong find
in the mud
of genealogy
that ends in
Hiroshimic
Ameratomic
radiology
Yellow
River
agronomy
misplaced
non-kanaka
physiognomy
because iʻm just a fuckin
untrained
unrestrained
halfbreed
washout
washed up on Americaʻs shores
land of the free home of the brave
where the braves live on reserves
where Japʻs not wanted here
neither black nor brown
nor even red
and not
white
washed history
language
epistemology
i canʻt speak my
mother tongue
father jaw
canʻt even lip off
in the hipster, Xʻer,
or whatever clicheʻd
lingo of the day
cuz iʻm just a lameass
boomer
who only got the boom
and the boomboom
as a kid
and i walk around
slit eyed
not because iʻm asian
but because i squint
and scowl
and have a resting bitch face
to keep the motherfuckers in their place
and from trying any shit on me
from shitting on my face
by
trying to take my dissociated body
trying to take my deformed thoughts
trying to take my choked voice
trying to take my lost place
trying to take my barren role
trying to take my rejected family
trying to take my reckless fears
trying to take my erased past
trying to take my denied future
trying to take my empty present
trying to take my unwanted desires
trying to take my silent story
and maybe i should become a
drinking, drugging, smoking,
always smiling, singing, surfing, always sexing.
a rejection.
an American (asian) woman
