soil

the soil

from which I stem from

makes me feel

like I forgot

like I saw war

and looked away

and never truly fought

how can you know places

you never got to see?

broken english pieced together

oceans

landmines

bombs

all breaking earth

and crossing seas.

-

my grandmother,

I loved her

but didn’t know her

just as she saw me

but didn’t recognize my skin

maybe it looked like betrayal

green eyes slanting upward

reaching to hold her hand

I’d find a closed fist every time

but then again,

when was the last time

I really sat down

and listened to her stories?

-

growing up

you learn to take from hands

cracked and calloused

by the foundation

they laid for you

you learn the value of

that little checkbox

“two or more races”

it got me places

my ancestors saw in dreams

so who am I to cry about it

if things don’t go my way?

a thousand long-lost relatives

died screaming

so I could live smiling

knee-deep in american soil.

-

when did life become

less about our past

and more about ourselves?

almost feels like ages

since I looked at all those pictures

hungry for identity

too vain to gain the weight

of what it meant

to be made of tragedy

that town is all gone now

blown to pieces

smashed to smithereens

so now I get it

this mandela effect

could’ve sworn it was history

but now the facts

seem incorrect.

-

it will always be

this aching feeling

a longing for culture

sunday lunch

trying to remember the word

for those little rice bags

we used to make

sitting at quiet restaurants

seeing little girls

that look like me

sitting next to parents

that look like drifting ships

worlds away

from where their home is

working tirelessly to make one

in the impossibility

of the sea.