……….I can name any season, but the trees I love will die
where they are. That what it means to become a light
……….year, to become memory: never stay long enough
to know belonging the way water’s face knows the sky,
……….the world’s translucent lung—the deadliest mammal
& the quietest. The hospital says I was conceived
……….as exit ritual, made by being cut
out of a woman, & just like that she was proof
……….I once stayed long enough to be born.
When the airplane rattles I pray
……….grandmother in every language I know
to keep gravity from splintering my bones.
……….I call her beloved, sayang, saying
to myself, isn’t my mother’s tongue
……….the only thing they can’t make me surrender
at the border?……….Say diaspora.……….Say destroy
……………………………………………………that sickness & stay
……………………………………………………a good wife. Say destroy
the old grudge & stay
a good citizen.
……….Say immigrate. ……….Say ingrate.
It’s not too late to turn back if I can touch
……….every doorway I’ve passed through to a story—
even in this dream of a house without papers.
……….Everything built from blood & sheet
music. I ask the crack beneath doors
……….to reveal some place I can mistake for light.
I ask new anthems to greet me with a jaw
……….wide enough to hold my name.
Natalie Wee is a queer Peranakan community-builder. She has received nominations for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net Anthology. Born in Singapore to Malaysian parents, she is currently a settler in Tkaronto (Toronto). Photo credit May Truong.