June 6th, 1998

I was born against my will,

9 years and 2 days after I died,

bringing a revolution to my home,

denouncing myself to everybody that I knew

in order to be deemed acceptable.

When I was 4, my father taught me

to turn bourgeois tendencies

into cultural muscle I could use,

to sculpt myself into reflections of those that surrounded me.

At age 12, I awoke early

and abandoned my bed of newspapers

plastered with my father’s face

so that I could walk my unlit streets,

hiding to avoid being called counterrevolutionary.

I was 16, when I saw my father

clinging to the wall,

crudely recreated on a big-character poster,

announcing his accusations of committing treason to his country.

I promptly copied down the information

and created a copy of the poster to hang on my ceiling,

to gaze at when I poured myself more Oolong.