The Entertainment Issue: Poetry Roundup
Each issue we feature the work of Asian female writers all over the world. Here are this issue’s poems…
Everyday I Wanna Be White by Katherine Ho
Everyday I wanna be white
They won't laugh when I speak
I feel white
Until they pointed it out
Accents
The kind that pierced your eardrums
Like a bird without its beak
Desperate to sing
Everyday I wanna be white
Flawless white skin
Bleached my skin at 11
Until it kills my DNA
Making me a blank canvas
For them to write their complements"You're so white"As if golden melanin is the enemy
To my roots
Everyday I wanna be white
So I can blend in with the crowded school bus
Of Québecois
Not be 10 and discriminated against
Je ne pas parle Français
Mais je sais ce que tu dis
Because I was born to sense
"Ching chong"
From across the room
Everyday I wanna be white
My eyes are big
But they still glued shut
Like a blind snake
Everyday I wanna be white
So I don't have to wonder
If he sees me as the porn he watched last night
Or a human being
Your soldiers left their marks
Inside of our women
Because their wives weren't submissive enough
Everyday I wanna be white
Child abuse wouldn't be seen as discipline
By my own community
So you wouldn't justify the fact
That my mother made me bulimic
Because Asian parents fat shamed their child
While force feeding them
Like gooses being made into foie gras
Just to be killed by their owners
Like it's a normal thing to do
While my daddy humiliated me in front of the whole world
I will be seen as a brat
But he won't be seen as an abuser
Or a racist
At the dinner table
Commentaries on races
Other than his own
Southeast Asian women sold themselves to men like you
Because their daddy bribed them with money
Empty apologies and broken promises
To keep them tamed
Everyday I wanna be white
Regardless of royal descent
My powers are stripped away
Used against women like me
Who aren't afraid to flaunt her sexuality
The title I can't run away from
Defines my character
That made me a Kurta
Because I don't wanna be called
A Ho
INSTAGRAM: @katherine.ktxo
RED by Nivita Chapagain
When I turned 13,
I became annoying.
"Was my mind out?",
to myself i often sought.
Did they just shoot me?,
because that sight made me angry!
The people who spoke left me irritated,
"Am I too stressed?",
"But, surely not dead "
So, this is what the sleepless nights did.
What did the lethargy mean!
But, were my mood swings ever seen?
Everyone told me,
it was just the beginning,
the beginning I was not prepared,
not prepared to dream the worst nightmare, happening.
You could imagine,
you were at school,
just out cool;
and suddenly, you wouldn't breathe,
you wouldn't want to live.
My body was at war,
the gnowing pain in abdomen,
unbearable in my sense.
Someone twisted my stomach;
in it, squeezed a big red tomato,
left my bladder with a tornado.
Believe me, it was not only an emotional rollercoaster,
something also hit my uterus.
"Or, is that kidney stone? "
My stomach started to bloat!
So, there were blenders all over my body,
which i was unknown of making it steady!
I ended;
curling up in my bed,
with the debilitating pain,
frightened for the blood in my vein.
And, it was there,
my first period;
that infamous crimson wave,
forming rivers,
then ocean in red.
INSTAGRAM: @nivs.totw