Ancestors

Each time I look back on the ghosts of my past, remembering the family, the friends, the dear ones, the hated, I remember again the sweetness of moments that are past, that are not to be never again no more.  And my eyes burn with salty fire, searing my soul for those moments that I still cherish, those seconds I took advantage of to engage with someone, the gusts of wind that I felt with them as we laughed, argued, loved, raged, and shared.  And there are those that I no longer know if they live or not, whether they remember me or not, maybe hate/love me still or not.


Those six bowls that I ate with 豬肉鬆 on an evening over 20 years ago are still warm in my belly, each cell infused with the love it took to make that, with the love that looked on me as I swallowed each giant bite, ricocheting off the mirror looking back at me from so many years ago.  That movie that you took me to and tried to make me feel grateful for afterwards, that anger that flashed across me as I threw the fucking dollars down and marched offwards, thanking other gratefully but remembering the reasons that the sight of you drove up acerbic bile each time I saw my parents suffer, that moment is forever a part of the blood that flows hotly through my typing hands.  Your knocks on the door, imploring me to come out and make sure I was alright because my rage so blindly strikes that it knocked my myopic eyes white with fury so hot the nine heavens burned, they echo in my ears now and then as I see you walking me home again in my dreams.  Your crisp laugh chirps as we encroach upon the darkest moment of fear in my life when my sinful body was exposed to the light, only to reveal that the darkness that I looked into was actually beauty covered up under a cloak of shame. 

I look out on the waters that flow left and right, washing waters on shores thousands of miles away that once lapped on that canal where we dipped our tree branch fishing rods, and think I can still hear your inscrutable words that I have not heard for 13 years now.  I look at my shoulder, engraved with those immortal words, etched in me that your brush strokes caressed into being so beautifully powerful, and smell the ink that I ground into the inkstone blackness where I saw that goddess that molded man into being those thousands of years back when our conception of ourselves began in a moment of feminine creativity.

That bird that came by my window some days ago, I sent it a song to send off to you so far away that the sounds will have already dissolved into dust and moisture on the peach you will eat while I sit here remembering you again so many more years again from now.  And the sweetness will replenish you as your tears have washed my face of those insecurities and imperfections that swell in my dark corners.  I grieve you today, sending you again some more songs with the wind, and I send you all the love that keeps me going, and I pray that your love will protect those that I can still see and hear and touch and love and smell and gaze at.  I remember you, again, today, this moment, this eternity.