She Is a Haunting

by Trang Thanh Tran

Imagine a devouring in reverse.

trees. Mouthfuls of shame, anger, and love, resentment, all of it pooling at the corner of my lips. Spit threads to the floor, connecting me to the house.

I am the only one he has ever hit. He is the only one who truly knows me.

I carry the burden of being the first child, and it sinks me into the soil.

Her eyes are kind and demand more from me.

It’s that hour when I can’t tell if it’s sunrise or sunset: the horizon is steeped rooibos in a blue mug, clouded with sugar.

That noise, that engine, this house knows what it is. A dinner bell. Yes, it’s time again.

I’m every person who survives: clutching a weapon and the last of their mind.

There will never be statues or universities in my honor here.

Leaves rustling, hair being brushed, tiny legs scuttling. This house is alive.

I giggle. In this house of dreams, I can have everything I want. Its buzzing tells me so.

Why is Đà Lạt not raining? Why does it not pour, as Ba says it does in July? Does the sky not know we are hurting?

Ba is a burning house, the doors open to me.

In this house of dreams, I can have anything I want. His protection and care, a girl to love, a mark on Vietnam. So many things whispered at the altar to burn into ash.

Human flesh burns the same way as any other meat, but a burning house screams in a thousand languages.

And me and Florence, what’s more to say? All stories end.