Thanhha Lai

Oh, my daughter,
at times you have to fight,
but preferably
not with your fists.

How can we scramble away like rats, without honor, without dignity, when everyone must help rebuild the country?

Paperwork, paperwork with a woman who pats my head while shaking her own. I step back, hating pity, having learned from Mother that the pity giver feels better, never the pity receiver.

Everyone knows the ship could sink, unable to hold the piles of bodies that keep crawling on like raging ants from a disrupted nest. But no one is heartless enough to say stop because what if they had been stopped before their turn?

I hate being told I can't do something because I'm a girl.

Our lives
will twist and twist,
intermingling the old and the new
until it doesn't matter
which is which.