A Simple Trajectory

May Yang

by HAUNTIE

Some time ago pale bodies slipped into Indochina and harvested

slave bodies to sow opium and mine silver. These slaves developed a

dependency on this unsustainable and temporary economy, becoming

heavily addicted to this intoxicating flower. Some no longer planted their

own food or raised their own livestock. A body from this time was that

of my grandmother’s. Impoverished—she was—mind, body and soul.

Strung out on the tar of this little flower, forgetting how and when to love

her children. A body that came to life through hers was my father’s. And

so it was that this boy would walk miles to school with maybe, sometimes

hardly ever, a palm-full of rice and a single chili pepper to sustain his body

for the duration of the day.

Night would fall,

and day would rise.

Then a secret war crept up so loud white minds shut it out

and all of humanity hushed it from the West to its East

and my grandfather went to war on the side that would win

doing these things, they couldn’t believe in

and maybe it was that they won, maybe

but the shackles of this flower brought my mother to my father

and the shackles of this flower brought my body to America

“Here I am,” i’ll say.

Here I am and I have to stay.

What are you? Where are you from? What did you come from?

i am a potent flower

stringing out your mind on the line after line

from the womb of a history birthed from white memory

i am American

i am good at forgetting

Make Me Human or Give Me Death

May Yang

by HAUNTIE

This matters because i’ve lived on that side of life that you all have made for
me

partitioned
the orphaned one

i who carry the fire from your ashes, the chains of your people,
and the residual sting from an incessant yellow rain

This matters because i realize something you thought i would never even
know!

that i have a mouth
and a throat!
my body remembers
the flesh, this flesh, my flesh is woke.

This matters because my mouth will let me be myth, no more!

i carry this fire and i carry it well and you will feel this heat
when you come up next to me
i will press you with this light until your sweat turns to boiling hot water
to relieve me
i will lick you, whip you with these flames until your body breaks
like mine to free me

and you will crawl and unlearn love and joy like i did
and you will cry and call for your God like I did.

because i am myth, no more!

Feel me.

and this flame which burned my grandfather’s house down
and this light which shackled my grandmother’s body down
and this heat which scorched my father’s spirit down
will look onto you and take you like it took me too

its
white
light

Because it matters
and this is how you will know me
Because i matter
and this is how you will fear me
Because i can be silent, no more!

to this white lie

or give me death.

4/26/2016

Mapping Home

May Yang

^{by HAUNTIE}

Body

A meeting place between the many times that came before it
These times, the trajectories that brought me to be here now

Body

A passing form
like a flower
the slowest moment of rupture in a single time

in time—body as memory
through time—body as home
with time—body as matter

i am body, yet i do not claim body
i never meant to sever with ink

What is the act of mark making, if not to define?
And what is definition, if not without exclusion?
What is exclusion, if not the cutting of matter?

The abstraction of cartography occurs
when the difference of parts is blurred
and lines are no longer visible
and place is not but visceral.

Meeting Place

May Yang

by HAUNTIE

i am straddling memory and the present tension

muscles turning into stone from the weight of time

how do you understand me in all of your knowing?

i am standing at crossroads

and there are many of them, one on top of the other

and they are not flat

and i could not just lie on the ground to rest and breathe

but i would like to

to survive i must stand and hold them all together

with my feet pinned down like a needle binding seems

so that when people cross me

when they cut these paths

we can speak

and we can be together

for a moment in time

this is how i feel about myself.

To All My Friends

May Yang

by HAUNTIE

That I could be this human at this time
breathing, looking, seeing, smelling

That I could be this moment at this time
resting, calmly moving, feeling

That I could be this excellence at this time
sudden, changed, peaceful, & woke

To all my friends who have been with me in weakness
when water falls rush down my two sides

To all my friends who have felt me in anguish
when this earthen back breaks between the crack of two blades

To all my friends who have held me in rage
when fire tears through swallows behind tight grins

I know you
I see you
I hear you

Although the world is silent around you

I know you
I see you
I hear you