my mom’s greatest gift was her constant fury.
kind and sweet-voiced as she could be, i
hear her when i yell, curse, threaten: i
hit as if her ghost drives my arms.
her sheer strength of will killed her: a nurse, a
shift boss who learned english after tagalog
and kapampangan, who, despite her first-
honors mind, had a post-war lexicon.
she was the object of patriarchy, racism, a
bad american diet; and so cancer claimed
her, and the last words she heard in this
world were mine, as i whispered in her
ear, “i’ll be okay” – i feel that all i do now
is her revenge against her tormentors.
:
:
~A.
dreamlogs & other ephemera 