Embroidered with Blood
My story cloth is embroidered with blood. It bleeds along the Mekong, where you can’t distinguish the gun smoke from the clouds or my mother’s tears from the rain. It bleeds with invisible footsteps through the jungles. It bleeds onto the rice fields and blossoms with the opium flowers. It bleeds deep. Blood stains my father’s hands as he cuts the umbilical cord. It covers my mother’s body as she washes her newborn. It bleeds from my placenta as it is buried with honor under the central column of the shack. Born in a refugee camp, my existence from day 1 has always been a political one. It bleeds deep. Blood stains the streets I walk on. It bleeds in masses of black, brown, and blue killings at the intersection with homes of violence, abuse, and overdose. Bruised and bleeding, repeating cycles of love that seems to be worthwhile suffering in pain of denial. It bleeds deep. Bloodstains splatter from my pen onto the pap