homesick. home sick. sickhome. sick at home. sick of home.
sick— of all the times i am woken up by the birds chirping out my window until— i remember
that the room where i spend my darkest days is but a forest’s exoskeleton,
a reminder of human intrusion,
that we are trespassers no matter where we stand.if there’s no place like home,
then why is it in my own yard where the stars don’t shine their smiles
in my own deaf bedframe i lie regurgitating days’ worth of worries and crude thoughts until my
body is a hollow shell with nothing left to retch
my feelings are suppressed
only when i gnaw the insides of my cheek till they swell and burst and bleed.
谁知盘中餐,粒粒皆辛苦1
when the broken shards of porcelain and spilled sticky rice leave me in tears on the kitchen floor,
you scold me tell tales of the farmers who feed us their backs forever hardened at that ninety
degree curvature from the hours spent coaxing the earth.妈妈 (mā ma)2, i wonder what was it like when you first came to america
your throat harboring a voice that spoke megalopolis in one country
but was silenced by a maimed tongue in another
how were those nights where you traded crimson firecrackers and explosive laughter
for loneliness and alienation that tinged your cockroach-infested bedroom a shade of indigo?
at night your furrowed brows show you sleep with dreams battered by the breadth of the Pacific
its roaring waves inflicted bruises on your mind, giving you too much hope for the world妈妈, this is a nation people like you have built
GENESIS has footing on the shoulders of those with wanderlust
not by choice but as a survival mechanism
like moths drawn towards light, the land of opportunity drew us in
but the man holding the lantern fueled by xenophobia
saw our blackened scalps and sallow faces
and turned the light so high up that genealogy, unable to see, burst into flames.
the mud our houses are built on swirls
thick with exodus and survival and the stories of you and a thousand others
it is mud doused in apartheid and ostracism-charged diction and penniless brothers
smothering you with the conviction
to scrub your limbs white until there is no more dirty yellow.except you are not left with pristine white; instead,
festering wounds of identity led astray
and an abandoned concept of home.妈妈, do you ever miss your home country?
where your tongue is no longer put into an aviary
where streets are lined with lanterns guiding you back to the sounds of home even when
mushroom clouds shroud the moon
in the land of rolling hills jaded with sweet sweet scents of 梅花3
we can still see your footprints impressed into paddies,
filled with the mud that bore you into existence rather than devouring you whole妈妈, i have heard people say “home is not a place, but rather a feeling.”
in that case, let me love you the way the songbirds
have learned to love perching on fleshless/desiccated/lifeless bones.
1 These lines from a Chinese children’s poem roughly translate to “Who actually realizes that each grain of rice /
is the product of arduous labor?”
2 mom in Chinese
3 plum blossoms in Chinese
- 115: SPACE
with A Sometimes
114: NO THEME 13
with J Toledo & C Tse
113: INVISIBLE WALLS
with A Walker & D Disney
112: TREAT
with T Dearborn
111: BABY
with S Deo & L Ferney
110: POP!
with Z Frost & B Jessen
109: NO THEME 12
with C Maling & N Rhook
108: DEDICATION
with L Patterson & L Garcia-Dolnik
107: LIMINAL
with B Li
106: OPEN
with C Lowe & J Langdon
105: NO THEME 11
with E Grills & E Stewart
104: KIN
with E Shiosaki
103: AMBLE
with E Gomez and S Gory
102: GAME
with R Green and J Maxwell
101: NO THEME 10
with J Kinsella and J Leanne
100: BROWNFACE
with W S Dunn
99: SINGAPORE
with J Ip and A Pang
97 & 98: PROPAGANDA
with M Breeze and S Groth
96: NO THEME IX
with M Gill and J Thayil
95: EARTH
with M Takolander
94: BAYT
with Z Hashem Beck
93: PEACH
with L Van, G Mouratidis, L Toong
92: NO THEME VIII
with C Gaskin
91: MONSTER
with N Curnow
90: AFRICAN DIASPORA
with S Umar
89: DOMESTIC
with N Harkin
88: TRANSQUEER
with S Barnes and Q Eades
87: DIFFICULT
with O Schwartz & H Isemonger
86: NO THEME VII
with L Gorton
85: PHILIPPINES
with Mookie L and S Lua
84: SUBURBIA
with L Brown and N O'Reilly
83: MATHEMATICS
with F Hile
82: LAND
with J Stuart and J Gibian
81: NEW CARIBBEAN
with V Lucien
80: NO THEME VI
with J Beveridge
57.1: EKPHRASTIC
with C Atherton and P Hetherington
57: CONFESSION
with K Glastonbury
56: EXPLODE
with D Disney
55.1: DALIT / INDIGENOUS
with M Chakraborty and K MacCarter
55: FUTURE MACHINES
with Bella Li
54: NO THEME V
with F Wright and O Sakr
53.0: THE END
with P Brown
52.0: TOIL
with C Jenkins
51.1: UMAMI
with L Davies and Lifted Brow
51.0: TRANSTASMAN
with B Cassidy
50.0: NO THEME IV
with J Tranter
49.1: A BRITISH / IRISH
with M Hall and S Seita
49.0: OBSOLETE
with T Ryan
48.1: CANADA
with K MacCarter and S Rhodes
48.0: CONSTRAINT
with C Wakeling
47.0: COLLABORATION
with L Armand and H Lambert
46.1: MELBOURNE
with M Farrell
46.0: NO THEME III
with F Plunkett
45.0: SILENCE
with J Owen
44.0: GONDWANALAND
with D Motion
43.1: PUMPKIN
with K MacCarter
43.0: MASQUE
with A Vickery
42.0: NO THEME II
with G Ryan
41.1: RATBAGGERY
with D Hose
41.0: TRANSPACIFIC
with J Rowe and M Nardone
40.1: INDONESIA
with K MacCarter
40.0: INTERLOCUTOR
with L Hart
39.1: GIBBERBIRD
with S Gory
39.0: JACKPOT!
with S Wagan Watson
38.0: SYDNEY
with A Lorange
37.1: NEBRASKA
with S Whalen
37.0: NO THEME!
with A Wearne
36.0: ELECTRONICA
with J Jones