make it real

we sit in silence
the kind of silence you find in church
when the air is electric with prayer
we are hopeful without function

my tongue is specked with diamond tastebuds
cutting airwaves with cinematic glory

make it real
i say

make it real
and say that i will never be back in this room with you

i want you to make it real for me

things i've learned being in this relationship

10 things i've learned in this relationship

1) i've learned i am not the only person
who thinks super nintendo is the best console ever made
2) i've learned how to stare at an itunes visualizer for two hours
3) i've learned how to fold 20 white tees in under 7 minutes
4) i've learned that a freckle under your eye means good luck
5) i've learned the extent of linguistic colonization
6) i've learned how to make adobo
7) i've learned more about kobe bryant than any other baller in the league
8) and like kobe, i've learned how to ask for forgiveness
9) like vanessa, i've learned how to forgive

but i haven't learned how to forget
i haven't forgotten about the gold earring i found under your bed
i haven't forgotten about the insufficient geography of my blood
i haven't forgotten broken ribs
i know broken ribs
i know how to cry silently and without movement
notify the saints
because you've been sleeping next to a weeping statue

i'm only what i think you want me to be
a wireless marionette

my chest cavity is a trojan horse
there is a terracotta army burrowed inside my heart
that awakens every time we make love
so every time we make love
i expect twice as much war

i am used to sleeping too close to the fire
burns are medals of honor
and i am a decorated veteran
subconsciously bent on battle
rubbing wounds with gunpowder and polishing my steel tongue

with us
anywhere is fair game
open fire in your kitchen, my car, in class
weaving invisible nets of dialogue into catch 22's and
releasing land mines tucked under our tongues

no one ever wins
this is the bloodiest stalemate to date

our circulatory systems rewire themselves and
the fiber in our bones realign to adjust to the trauma
our voiceboxes pitch frequencies that shake the overcast blanket
loose of forgotten constellations

cause pointing out falling stars turns our bodies into white flags
and it's only perfect that we still find ways to sacrifice
even when we're fighting

we always ask each other
why we keep trying

10) i've learned how to be a martyr
but not a savior
our time together will be the latest addition to the crusades

they say holiness is not found between lovers
but i discovered prayer in your palm lines
your chest was a seashell
when i held my ear against you
i could hear whispers of scripture flowing through your veins

1992

a regular heartbeat consists of two sounds
a common year is 365 days
there were 366 in 1992
leap years are like irregular heartbeats
sometimes, they are benign, at others, fatal

some claim ice cube became a prophet in 1992
in his song, black korea, he states
"pay respect to the black fist
or we'll burn your store down to a crisp"
as if lyrical fuel spilled out of stereos onto the street
turning those cracks in the sidewalks
into moats of gasoline thirsty for a match
and it came

on april 29th, 1992
4 white lapd officers were acquitted of beating a black man, rodney king

we dust off mental reels of grainy video
taped by the usual swarm of helicopters circling south central
and remember white news anchors entitling the LA riots
the WAR between KOREANS and BLACKS

images of brown bodies throwing rocks through store windows
koreans locking onto guns they'd never held before
and the police? they disappeared faster than the liquor stores
that were burned to the ground

it's no surprise, right?
they left us there, to kill each other
so who's protecting who?

in 1992, i turned 3 years old
didn't know how to speak english
what a court trial was
or who the police were
i wish i knew more back then
i wish i knew what leap years and irregular heartbeats were
i wish i knew english so i could have scripted a prayer to god
asking him to take back one of those days he created
just this once

i wonder what would have happened
if the trial was a day earlier
or a day later

but i'm grown now,
enough to know that chance is not enough to stop
the armies from amassing in LA
chance is only an interruption
a glitch in the space/time continuum

with that said, ice cube is not a prophet
but a lyrical barometer
and me? i'm grown now
enough to admit that i don't know shit
about what it was like to be a black man in compton during the 90s

but i do know what it was like to be a korean girl
growing up in her parents' store in south seattle in the 90s
so mr ice cube
do you know my mother father brother
every single one of my cousins
you call "oriental chinese penny-pinching motherfuckers"

do you know of the wars braided in the fibers of our bones
stitched into our eyelids
and shoved in our wombs
do you know what a landmine explosion tastes like
what napalm spray sounds like

while you cheer the incineration of livelihoods
and spit in the faces of grieving mothers
i never once blame you

how can i curse combatants for actions
when we're all pawns of the generals?