Green Island

by Shawna Yang Ryan

It doesn’t matter what they will make of you or your days: they will be wrong, they will miss the wrong woman, miss the wrong man,

“Dictators are exempt.” “Ah, there’s another funny thing. He was our president, fighting for democracy and freedom. A dictator? Who would call him a dictator? We don’t use that language. That’s for Westerners. If we say he was a dictator, then we will have to admit that we were duped.”

“Then say nothing.” See no evil, hear no evil, say no evil. Turn a blind eye.

“After years of bitterness, a good friend said to me that anger is an ember, and the one who holds it is the only one who is burned. This advice woke me up. I realized we all have a chance to remake the world. We don’t have to hold on to the world as it came to us. We can have a vision and make the world anew. Every day, we have a second chance. This is what I hope to pass on with my music.”