A Place Called No Homeland Read online

  i chop so many vegetables these days, the way you taught me

  blade held slantwise, angled away from the hand. do you remember

  my six-year-old eyes, so wide with wonder

  at the speed with which you sliced

  carrots became orange coins, potatoes became cubes, like magic?

  i was mesmerized by how quickly you could cut ,how deep.

  “i started working in a kitchen when i was your age,” you told me

  Cantonese syllables falling short and choppy on my ears

  matching the taktaktak of your knife on the cutting board,

  “i saw a man lose a finger once. one careless slice, finger gone!

  forever.”

  i learned from you that knives can only cut one way

  magic only works one way

  you don’t get back what you’ve cut off

  so now that we are a continent apart

  i will not know it when you die. i’ll hear

  over the phone, perhaps by email, after the fact.

  but the moment itself is lost to me, cut off, cut out

  by words and time and geography, all knives

  i will be chopping vegetables when you die, nonchalant

  steam rising from the pot on the stove, and perhaps

  as you exhale your last breath

  close your eyes,

  go still,

  my hand will slip

  blood flowing between carrot slices, escaping

  into my soup, where it will taste

  so salty, so bitter, and sweet

  the way blood always tastes.

  the river

  someone told me once

  that a secret river flows

  under every street

  in every chinatown in every city

  in the world. and this river speaks

  in a secret language that sounds like

  a sigh

  and stretches

  to follow every footstep, every turn, every twisting alleyway

  to swallow every sacrifice our mothers made

  every blow our fathers struck, every

  drop

  that ever fell

  from slanted eyes spilling over

  withjoy or sorrow

  it is in this thirsty, salty river

  that forgotten names are born

  Kai Cheng

  Xiao Mei

  Ei Lien

  Bic Lein

  Yeet Jin

  Yao On

  shadows without bodies, words without tongues

  these names swirl in the river of sighs, whispering

  the secrets of their meanings as they wait for the nameless

  to return

  Oi Lein

  Ah Keem Kai Cheng

  Xiao Mei Yao On

  beneath the motor-rumble roar of vancouver’s cityscape

  i can hear the shushing of a river

  it stretches across the sea

  it reaches across the years

  it slithers into the Cantonese restaurant where i am sitting

  and suddenly i am drawing in

  smells tastes memories cravings

  for places i don’t remember

  and dishes i never liked

  stories i didn’t understand

  relatives i never loved

  the waitress comes to take my order

  but all the chinese words have been crowded out by longing

  and i am forced to point to pictures on the menu instead

  ears burning with embarrassment

  and full of the river’s laughter

  Kai Cheng

  Xiao Mei

  Ei Lien

  Bic Lein

  Yeet Jin

  Yao On

  dancing to the drumbeat pulse of amateur DJs in montreal’s nightscape,

  i am swinging sweaty hips

  and licking the salt off my lips in the arms of a stranger

  who tells me that he loves the sound of chinese

  so musical

  a beautiful language, for a beautiful people

  nihao, he says, lei haileng jai

  and i smile,

  and say, i’d like a tequila sunrise, please

  and because he buys me one, i let him kiss me his lips taste like cinnamon

  he asks me

  what’s your name?

  and i tell him

  he says, no, i mean your real name. your Chinese name

  and suddenly the walls of this nightclub fortress,

  this place where desire grows like something forbidden,

  begin to crumble,

  the foundations of this queer-love-island-in-the-dark

  begin to shake, and i can hear the sound of history

  crashing down like a current

  bearing down like a flood

  sweeping down like a hurricane

  i lost my name to the river,

  i lost my memory to dreams,

  i cannot sleep for dreaming,

  i dream live body geographies, nations

  sculpted from the permeable borders of skin

  wet warm earth-coloured wombs that swell

  and rise and tremble with the moon

  to give birth to babies connected by blue-river veins of memory

  my blond white lover tells me that the revolution

  will begin in New York he says

  that when the revolution comes there will be no colours,

  no classes

  no genders

  no nations,

  my lover tells me that when the revolution comes, he will hold me

  and our kisses will undo every blow ever struck,

  will turn back every sacrifice we ever made,

  erase every scar i have ever borne,

  and replenish all the soil we have ever drained of life

  my lover tells me

  that when the revolution comes, we will make love as the towers burn

  and all the empty spaces in me my body my spirit will be filled

  Oi Lein

  Ah Keem Kai Cheng

  Xiao Mei

  darling, when your revolution comes, i will not be here,

  when the towers start to burn, i will be the first to die,

  when the bombs start to fall, my love, i will go down to

  the river

  i will wait for you in the river

  where the names of my forefathers and foremothers were

  born,

  where the bodies of the forgotten float

  Ah Keem

  Oi Lien Yao On

  and when you tire of watching the explosions

  perhaps you will come to me then, my darling

  perhaps you will make love to me

  to my closed eyes to my still limbs

  perhaps you will fill my empty spaces with your anger

  your longing your lust

  and whisper

  the revolution’s come, the revolution’s come

  i’ve saved you, you’re free

  Xiao Mei

  Ei Lien

  Bic Lein

  Yeet Jin

  Yao On

  someone told me once that a secret river flows through every rib cage

  of every coloured person who’s ever been lost. and this river speaks

  in a secret language that sounds like a sigh. the river remembers

  everything that we’ve ever forgotten, every footstep, every turn

  every twisting alleyway, every blow our mothers struck, every sacrifice

  our fathers made. and this river waits for us to return to it, waits for us

  to return to ourselves,

  to kneel at the bank of the forgotten stream

  of our bloodlines, where all our forgotten names

  are waiting to be born.

  Kai Cheng

  Xiao Mei

  Ei Lien

  Bic Lein

  Yeet Jin

  Yao On

  girlboy, you femme femm
e fabulous

  cuz today’s the day you stop defining yourself by the lines the knives the hands the knuckles belt buckles blades left on your arms legs chest face today’s the day you start to breathe in three dimensions again. time to paint your nails red again. time to grow your hair long enough to tie up and put flowers in and walk along the beach into the wind and let the petal fragrance waft around you like a cloud. mingling with the salt tang of the surf that sprays cool against your beautiful legs so long and so bare in short shorts with cuffs so high they make heaven blush like dawn is coming dawn is coming dawn is here. boy, sometime you got to forget what someone said to you what someone did to you how much you hurt. you got to forgive yourself for hurting. you got to remember that your heart is not a clenched fist your heart is not a bruised face your heart is a mango full to bursting with sunlight oh sticky heart, smooth substance, there is joy in your aching, refuse to surrender the memory of your flavour. delicious heart, refuse to forget. boy, you got to love the girl in the boy in the girl in the boy in you in you in you.

  boy, you got to love the girl in the boy in the girl in the boy in you in you in you. delicious heart, refuse to forget. you got to remember that your heart is not a clenched fist your heart is not a bruised face your heart is a mango full to bursting with sunlight oh sticky heart, smooth substance, there is joy in your aching, refuse to surrender the memory of your flavour. you got to forgive yourself for hurting. boy, sometime you got to forget what someone said to you what someone did to you how much you hurt. mingling with the salt tang of the surf that sprays cool against your beautiful legs so long and so bare in short shorts with cuffs so high they make heaven blush like dawn is coming dawn is coming dawn is here. time to grow your hair long enough to tie up and put flowers in and walk along the beach into the wind and let the petal fragrance waft around you like a cloud. time to paint your nails red again. cuz today’s the day you stop defining yourself by the lines the knives the hands the knuckles belt buckles blades left on your arms legs chest face today’s the day you start to breathe in three dimensions again.

  girlboy, you femme femme fabulous

  Prayer

  [To the East]

  For the colonizers, and the shadow of their violence

  For my ancestors, and the echo of their silence

  [To the West]

  You have known me, with your body’s violence

  Remember me, with touch and silence

  [To the North]

  God damn God and His Creation’s violence

  God damn God, who answers with silence

  [To the South]

  Forgive me, for my violence

  Save me, with the gift of silence

  M’goi, Megwetch, Ashe, Amen

  made

  They made me. like god. They said, let there be light –

  and there was. and They said let there be desire

  and there was. and They said, let there be shame

  and there was. They made me. from dust and from dirt

  from the shameful soil of the ugly earth i was made

  They said, “come forth,” and obedient as dust, i appeared

  stretch-skinned and raw-boned, my heart a skinny offering

  hungry as shadow and silent as worship, i came

  to serve in silence and leave the same, i was made.

  in bathrooms and back rooms, in alleyways

  and empty stairwells, They made me

  from the drops of their sweat and the trickle of blood

  as They bit down on my lips, from the tickle of fingers

  as They scraped my ribs, they made me. in the dark.

  in Their image They made me, but smaller:

  smaller fingers, smaller eyes, smaller asshole, smaller cock.

  the better to be fucked with, my dear. fucking was the secret.

  fucking is the Word. fucking is Word of God. fucking

  more than breathing, more than seeing, more than facebook

  makes you real.

  in the darkness that was Before Fucking, Nothing wanted

  to be made real. because Nothing wasn’t enough of Anything

  to be a Something. Nothing spoke no language.

  Nothing did not know touch. Nothing had no hair on its chest

  no blue in its eyes, no gold in its hair or light in its skin. Nothing

  was not in fashion magazines or the radio. Nothing

  was not televised. Nothing was not the revolution. Nothing

  was not even close.

  so Nothing took its skinny heart to the rain-soaked streets.

  Nothing danced its shaking body to a quivering beat. Nothing

  whirled and twirled and clicked its heels and drank jäger bombs

  that it discreetly vomited a few minutes later, and wanted

  and wished

  and made silly promises to the restless universe. so when They came

  asking for obedience, Nothing said yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes.

  yes to the light and the darkness and the desire. yes to being born. yes

  to blow jobs for nothing at three in the morning, yes to dirty talk

  dirty like the soiled and rotten earth, yes to come here, bitch

  and suck it, bitch and you like that, bitch? yes to intimacy

  yes to the possibility of being loved. yes to the hand on the thigh, crawling

  up and under, yes to being slapped in the face. yes, i’ll be a bottom. yes

  i am your bitch. yes, your cock is huge. yes, put it up my ass, yes

  it’s fine without a condom, yes fuck me fuck me fuck me till i bleed.

  yes to fisting! yes to being born!

  yes i’m fine, no need to feel guilty for the bruises, yes

  i like it, yes

  i love you, yes

  to the scrape of your nails on my rectum, yes

  to touch. yes

  iwanna be sexy, yes I wanna be happy, yes

  iwanna come, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, i said yes

  god damn you, god damn god, i said yes. yes to the light-bringer!

  yes to filth. yes to the apple! yes to eve!

  yes to pain and to shame and to wondering and to crawling

  home half naked reeking of cum and weed. yes, make me fuckable.

  yes, make me real. yes! yes! i want it! yes! yes! yes!

  i said yes.

  They made me.

  between friends

  i still remember the day

  (the night/club, actually)

  that i first realized

  i was worth less

  than you.

  first understood

  that our bodies meant different things

  different pasts

  different futures.

  how the boy who approached you was nervous

  skin slick with sweat and desire

  how awkward and yet tender you were

  as you danced together.

  how i smiled, both glad and envious

  waiting for my own tender boy

  who for some reason could not see me

  for some reason never came

  my skin too brown perhaps, blended in

  with the nightclub shadows

  while you stood out, bright as the moon.

  you had coffee dates and grindr hook-ups

  and melodramatic romance

  i gave bathroom blow jobs to older men who

  told me how much they liked asians and

  complimented my english.

  i remember how sad and alone i felt

  when i realized that your revolution was different from mine

  you fought for the right to love freely

  and i fought to be loved at all.

  i still remember what it was like

  dancing beside you

  and waiting to be chosen,

  you

  sweet and pale as apple flesh

  and me

  a darker kind

  of fruit

  queer tr
ibe

  what is this queer community that everyone keeps talking about?

  i see you there teetering on the edges of dancefloor and consciousness

  but gurl, i’ll give you this, you know how to werq that ass.

  how gracefully you slip and slide, gliding like a sequined angel

  on a roller coaster out of heaven. you shake those hips like you

  shook your fists last week at the manif on rue stcatherine. fuck tout

  fuck les flics cops are bastards you screamed what would you say

  if i told you i called the cops once

  when I didn’t know what else to do

  to stop a man from raping me? (i called you too, you didn’t

  pick up)

  last week, the girl who came up from behind and strangled me at a party

  got hired to be co-coordinator of biggest “rad” social justice non-profit in town

  i told you this and you said i needed to think about the bigger picture before

  saying anything. who said anything

  about saying anything? i’m as good at keeping secrets as anyone else

  in this sceneafter all, the one thing that all of us