once the deep ringing of his snores
emerges from his nostrils,
it weighs warmly on my eyelids
like a lullaby.
- joua
Trees in windy lands
have stronger trunks
But even they cannot withstand
the strongest winds
When you’ve been ripped by your roots
and tossed across the way
You find yourself needing new ground
to bury your roots in
We are all trees,
needing to reach
needing to ground
needing to grow
both up and down
Joua Lee 5/8/13
National Poetry Month 10
There he was,
a man who was no longer the boy I once knew
it has been ten years
since we last saw each other.
back then,
he rushed for any gang he could
but his skinny body could never handle
the intense jump in’s
yet they never scared him
never defeated him, not even a bit
he confronted any gang member around him
to prove his toughness
but never saw what i saw:
a suicide mission.
Now here he was,
surprising me so many years later
in my kitchen
shifting between feet
eagerly asking me how i have been
his eyes defeated
not by any gang beating
or a decade on an Arkansas farm
but by the loss of his mother
not too many weeks ago.
he has been making movies
just as i have.
married for five years
not yet wanting kids
until his wife finishes college.
he, too, wants to go back
for the education he once took for granted
this man was once one of the boys
i worried for
who says that young reckless boys
could not grow into good men?
who says that they had no good
to begin with?
i saw the good then,
and i see it again
There he was,
a man who was no longer the boy i knew,
with all the good that was there,
hidden behind angry fists and dangerous battles,
to begin with.
National Poetry Month 9
sometimes
when my mother tells me
i am my father’s daughter
she makes me question
how possible it is
that i can hurt my children
in my efforts to raise them
and i wonder
if it will ever be a good idea
to have children of my own
but then i remember
the crinkles on the edges
of children’s eyes
and the teeth and gums that show
when their lips split during laughter
i remember
the birthday when my father bought me
a princess jasmine birthday card
covered in glitter
and handed me
a bouquet of flowers freshly picked
and i realize
it would not be a good idea
not to try.
National Poetry Month 8
white figures
tend to speak
with rough tones
and frustrated expressions
towards brown-skinned beauties
with multi-lingual tongues
when i arrive
to stand between
the differences
they hear my perfect english
their attitudes seem to shift
to calmer voices
and a bit of understanding
sometimes i am reminded
how privileged i am
to have no accent.
National Poetry Month 8
Sometimes I wonder
what it is like on your side
of the sun, my dear.
For Alex.
National Poetry Month 7
mom still has it tough
when trying to make the strange
mashed potatoes dish
National Poetry Month 6
fifty percent of test booklets
read and scribbled in
by tiny hands of color
meet reading standards
compared to eighty percent
of tiny white hands,
and five years later
when those same hands scribble
into similar tests
only thirty percent
of colored hands
get firm grips and proud shakes
for a job well done
alongside eighty percent
of white hands.
my skin eats sun rays.
yours, too. I am meant to be
brown and loving you.
National Poetry Month 5
Dim room
sunlight peeking through a small opening
in the window
I sit adjacent to this fragile Hmong woman,
eyebrows filled in with brown,
the rest of her face bare.
“How have you been?” I ask.
It is wonderful what a simple question can do.
She brushes the hair behind her ear,
eyes widen
and she says,
“Bad. It’s the same as it was in 2004
when I tried to take my own life:
drank a big cup
of strong white Hmong liquor
Couldn’t function for days
but I lived”
They call her stupid
for having ears that protect her from the world
for lips that slur art, beauty, life
They call her slut
for wanting to love men who refuse to stay
for their families who choose to deny her
They call her AIDS-infected
for no longer believing in men enough to want to ever marry
for running for herself.
They call her children unlovable
For life choices they had no hand in
for loving their mother despite what others said.
Rejection
is a three syllable word.
Re for Reliving the hatred.
Jec for ntsev, xiam ntsev…
translating to losing salt,
loss of dignity.
Rejection.
Tion for being shunned from society
from our own families.
These sounds
emit a hurt that Hmong men don’t seem to have to face
Only we, the ones with breasts
and the havens that hold life
Only we, the babies who did not choose
to be born to mothers covering up victim on their chests
Only we, the life that flows outwardly in lovely rhythmic difference
Only we.
She stops
and glances
to see if I am still listening,
and the pain continues to overflow
from her mouth that has been sewn shut for too long
but now rips apart with things that were too big to hold in:
“In 2005 I took 24 pills
and stumbled up the stairs, dying
At the ER, they pumped the salvation from my stomach
and asked ignorantly,
why do you want to die?”
She adjusts stiffly in her seat,
bare feet planted on the unravelling carpet
Boy and girl sit cross-legged on the floor
fighting over remote control
“It is these two who make me stay,”
she say.
“Nothing else. Not even me.”
When the blinds have been shut for so long,
it becomes a battle to rip them open
to let in the sunshine
so that we can finally see
ourselves
We are not their words.
Neither slut nor stupid.
Not disabled or unlovable.
Not weak, useless, mistake, faulty,
Not anything
that they want to call us.
We are not their failures.
Not the mistakes they want to bury with blame
We are our own successes
Rejection is a three syllable word.
Re for Revival.
Jec for Ntse, intelligence.
Tion for xyoo, the years, the age, the wisdom.
Rejection is an opportunity to start new
Because once you’ve hit the bottom,
The only place you have to go now
is up.
To the amazing woman who shared her story with me and all other Hmong women and individuals with disabilities who power through others’ hatred every single day.
