Poetry by J.N.

Edited by Leyna Le Hoang

Sometimes

My mother would call me her “mom”

As a joke,

One that I never particularly liked,

For the way I fussed over silly things like following rules

That were not so important in hindsight.

She called me that because when her mind was scattered

Like leaves in a wild gust of wind,

I would help her pick up the pieces.

My Bà Ngoại¹ would pick her apart

For the way her pieces kept falling.

As a child I saw the power of the earth behind Bà Ngoại’s words as if they were

Immovable mountains,

Expansive, unshakable

Unquestionable.

They seemed to overshadow my mother’s

Thundering embrace.

She was a tropical storm, my mother,

So sure of herself,

Someone that could never be tied down

In one place too long.

Her winds soar

Far above solid earth

Like she has never known what it was like

To plummet helplessly toward it.

How did I not realize Bà Ngoại had to wait

Until my mother had left before she could take what was sacred to me?

Once, a girl met a boy from a home that taught him that

Nothing was serious until plates were shattered.

It was only a matter of time before he cracked her windshield.

Blame and regret linger on her person like the smell of incense on her prayer mat.

Fear spills from between her teeth more easily than words.

Apologies don’t come easy.

They fall like rotten mantras,

Stinking of sacrifice and compliance and all the things she’d been taught to scarf down her too-narrow throat.

She speaks like her body is hollow, but her tears and torn flesh

Are gold.

I hate that she’s like that.

I am exactly like her.

Maybe the same way she sees the potential for scarves out of torn clothing

And a bench out of old scrap wood, she saw a good man in him.

She forgives like that’s what it means to love.

She told me that growing up in her neighborhood

There were always bullies,

Young boys with too much to prove

And not enough space to contain themselves.

She told me of how they only picked on kids half their size,

How she collected old, rust-covered rings with missing gemstones and exposed metal claws,

How she would adorn her small fists with those treasures, like a princess of lost things,

How if the bullies were going to go after her or her sisters,

She was gonna fuck them up.

I found her crying in her closet, so I wouldn’t have to see it.

All I could do was hold her.

I was a thing to be seen and not heard, 

A doll given life only at the whims of another,

But my rage was wild when he yelled at her.

I ran away as fast as my three-year old feet could carry me

Because in the end, he was still a man, and I was still so small.

She loves telling me this story,

Reminding me how I always took care of her

Like I was my mother’s mom,

And breaking my heart.

When the new him left her stranded on the side of the road

All I could do with this stronger body

Was avoid his gaze and rush to find her.

Dwelling serves the same purpose as puncturing a life preserver, yet the urge still screams at me.

I massage her bad shoulder.

She gives me the best part of the fish.

When she kisses my forehead, all I know how to do is turn away.

I’m bigger than he is now and still can’t save her.

How could she look at me and not see the girl she used to be? 

How does it not tear her apart?

It’s not a new story, 

A girl who resents her mother’s path

Also can’t live up to her shadow.

She is the lesson I have yet to fully grasp;

I am the mirror that reflects all of her flaws, and

She’s only a girl

Like me.

Like me,

She’s only a girl

Whose parents were my ông ngoại² and bà ngoại.

What must it have been like to live under that suffocating roof?

I have her,

And she is the first fall of glorious rain.

Like me,

She’s only a girl

Who fell in love with a boy too troubled to see much beyond his feet.

I have her.

She leaves a mess of torn branches and wistfulness in her wake,

And doesn’t know or doesn’t care to avoid the thorns in her path,

But if my plates start shattering,

I have her, my tropical storm.

She has me.

If her windshields break again,

She has me, her daughter, “mom.”

Footnotes

¹Grandmother on mother’s side

²Grandfather on mother’s side

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Artist Statement: “Mother, Daughter, Daughter Mother” is a poem about recognizing the generational parallels between my mother’s life and my own. It is a nonlinear story composed of reflections upon past memories and events that contextualize present-day musings about how our relationship has changed over time. The contradicting nature of many of its lines highlights how generally there are few things more powerful, complicated, and moving than familial ties. Though it is ultimately a poem about my relationship with my mother and how I have grown to accept my role in it, most of the poem focuses on my mother because both our stories and us as people are intrinsically linked. A story about me without her is incomplete. The poem uses a few words in Vietnamese to capture the particularities of some referenced relationships that have no English equivalent and to be more accurate to my own experiences.