i tell my mother everything
By Tina Do
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which is to say: I only tell her about the things that are safe—
yes mom, I got an A in English, no mom, I don’t look at boys, only textbooks of course, the haircut you gave me in front of the bathroom sink is fine I understand—I won’t go to the sleepover yes, it’s ok to sell the piano so we can pay rent— mom, let me explain the movie— this character lives, this one dies, this is how everything ends. or rather, this is how it begins: hey mom, I got a C+ in math to the surprise of my peers and loved a boy whose name was the same as a crowbar until he laughed in my face and called me ugly I wish we hadn’t sold the piano— the one I cherished with all my fingers until I was 16 with a crack in the middle C key because I dropped the metronome on it trying to cheat the kitchen timer you set for two hours—but I was never going to be a concert pianist at least not the one you rented out to aunts and uncles who were never mine except in ways that didn’t matter paid in nothing but gummy smiles, sore cheeks, no boundaries and thêm một bài hát con— I have never held a cigarette, but I want to know what it’s like to be a proper rebel—leather jacket, army boots, fishnets, and piercings, hold smoke in my lungs like I have something to prove. I shoplifted as a teenager because you couldn’t afford to buy yourself new underwear and pay for our groceries, so I stuffed panties into my coat sleeves and put them in your drawer. I guess I am saying I don’t know how to live like I’ve been loved my entire life that I only watch movies in short bursts pause after every twenty-minute interval pause yes, I’ll take you to the store / the doctor / the dentist / the post office pause knives is spelt with k / oh, it means the same as dao rewind mom, this is the story that bà nôi told me about you: a girl brings up four brothers for a mother that is there but not really leaves one continent for another to settle in uncertainty sews tapestries for a history that has chosen to write—her out— about the men who thought warfare was between a woman’s legs, then went home to their wives and loved their families— all this to say: my mother doesn’t tell me about the dangerous things, that she ran with knives before she could spell them in English cut her hand on blades before she knew how to say blood, tries to cook bún bò huế with a half-formed tongue which is to say: this is how we live and die. this is how everything ends—lingchi Tina Do is a Vancouver-based poet, unashamed dinosaur aficionado, and MA student at Simon Fraser University. She is honoured to receive her first publication credit from The /tƐmz/ Review. These days, you can catch her reading up on whether or not dinosaurs had lips, trying not to over-love her new plants, and find her on Twitter @tinadodo95.
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