A Way of Expression
As a kid
I wondered
Why can’t you be like the other parents
Shower me with hugs and kisses
Words of affirmation
Affirming a job well done
Instead of showing your love through your lips,
You used your hands
To keep my stomach full and satisfied
You used your mind
To provide me with the best education and music lessons
You used your body and brain
To work at a job you didn’t love, because “a job is a job”
It puts food on the table and pays the bills
.
The times you used your lips were
To ask 妳吃了嗎
Have you eaten yet
To make sure I was healthy and OK
Why did you make this grade?
You could’ve done better
Because I see your potential
I wish you would ask me simply
“How are you doing?”
Instead of asking me about school all the time
Or not at all,
Because you were afraid of “distracting me”
From my studies
.
In middle school
I had forgotten my lunch
You stopped the bus
Ran up on the bus, with my lunch in hand
In your sharp and shrill voice you sang
“Rachel? Rachel?”
Waved my lunch in the empty air
And I hid
In the back
Under the rectangular seat
I hid
So you left
Sometimes I wonder if that was just a dream
You tell me you don’t remember that happening
But it did
And now that I look back,
I am so
So
Ashamed
That I could be ashamed of my own blood and being
To hide and deny
You
I’m sorry
I’m so sorry
Please forgive me
.
Now
16ish years later
I know
I understand
Though not, probably never, fully
I understand where you were coming from
I wonder if you don’t say those three words connecting me and you
With love as the bridge
Because you didn’t hear it come from your parents’ lips either
But it resounded profoundly by what they did
What they sacrificed for you
.
I believe in the power of words
I have comfortably wrapped myself in poetry and prose as a garment
Quickly expressing my thoughts and feelings to those close to me
But with you
I know you see love through actions which take more work
When I spend the whole day making tortillas, musubi or 葱油饼
Picking out the weeds in our garden one by one
I hope you know
That I’m saying
.
I love you too.
