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?