When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities

by Chen Chen

I am not the heterosexual neat freak my mother raised me to be. I am a gay sipper, & my mother has placed what’s left of her hope on my brothers.

It got so bad God personally had to speak to me.

God did not listen to me. God is not a good listener. I said Stop it please,

Thing is, God couldn’t take a hint.

Seeing you run so beautifully on the track that afternoon, I wanted you to suffocate, breath-starved from all the miles you’d run away from me.

With cities fueled by scars. With the footprint of a star. With the white boy I liked. With him calling me ugly. With my knees on the floor. With my hands begging for straighter teeth, lighter skin, blue eyes, green eyes, any eyes brighter, other than mine.

What is it, to remember nothing, of what one loved? To have forgotten the faces one first kissed?

First light, last scent, lost country. First & deepest severance that should have prepared me for all others.

I went in search of a face without theory.

I saw violence in anything with a face. I wished for a place big enough for grief,

Aren’t all great love stories, at their core, great mistakes?

I wish I could write an elegy for my sadness because it has suddenly died. I wish I could mourn it

I’m envious of the redwood who never has to say I am & who will outlive me.

I’m envious of those who learn Life Lessons from their envy.

we write broken sonnets finally forgiving the Broken English of Our Mothers,

I try to build a bridge to my parents but only reach my mother & it’s a bridge she’s about to jump off of.