Family Day

So! tell me, kid. are you so proud

of this, your city- never loud?

where daughters cheer for football sons

lacrosse teams/sidewalks/winning runs

and leave alone and stoned; I cry

from a lack of rest. I feel alive

though! If I go to bed I fear

the high, the house, the palace here

my confidence, so prized, so dear

will go, get lost, just disappear.

athletics of the white man soon

get boring. So instead a few

cartoons of adulthood like you

are cassie, nate, or maddie/rue

escaping bright suburbia

in sleep, phantasmagoria

of self, could I have done that? No

no no no no no way just no

our blatant lies, I’ll be home soon!

While mommy waits all afternoon

though Chinese New Year’s now I think

what do they eat? I have no ink-

ling. Yes, I know, tradition calls

and I must stay within those walls

but I’m not really you, you know

all my friends admit it’s so.

therefore, if push should come to shove

I’ll let you go (I have to, love)

no matter if my eyes are blue

or brown, I’m me, before I’m you

and so, I see, it lets me go

my culture, gone. (No space to grow.)