Samgen Chin: After Have They Run Out of Provinces Yet?
After Have They Run Out of Provinces Yet?
We are bodies of work - a whole anthology if you’ll let us be.
we are model minority because we make
railroads or iPads or mapo tofu.
Here we are, breast and body bare, born in other and steeped in not.
All at once invisible and still taking up too much space
still taking up too many jobs - a infestation of success
still clamped under bamboo ceilings.
So put me on like Halloween costume
made in China, for just one night.
Take my name as it suits you: Yi Fen Chou.
Take it off when the wrinkly polyester skin
itches too much like the cheap piece of shit it is.
Look at me spectacle
a circus show at the Oscars
the dismembered limbs of Fújiàn on the butcher’s block is
the butt of the funniest Fukien joke.
Call it satire or social commentary in couplets.
I call my history commodity already -
something I package and give away to judges for points.
Even this poem is made to be eaten
bite-size in two minutes
a kind of quick catharsis:
the hollow shame in the moments after you cum.
I’ve run out of reasons why I am more than body
run out of ways to perform myself more than ghost
run out of silence and fucks to give.
Call me tension, threat, too many to name, as I
run out into the night as infinite as you imagine me.
To The Mother of the Boy Who Hit Me
Let me tell you about moths:
moths use a form of celestial navigation
called transverse orientation
which means they keep the moon
perpendicular to the horizon to fly straight.
The moon is far and constant
but when the night is filled
with faces of bright, round light
they mistake fluorescing bulbs for
the smile of the moon.
Transverse orientation only works in the absence
of artificial light. The movements toward and from horizon
guide well in the steady moonlight
but in the false illumination, the same movements
cause a death spiral.
That day I spiraled back into your house
I was frantically circling
following whatever light promised forgiveness and answers.
I looked like I had rammed into a couple of walls already
with rings of dried blood around my nostrils
bruised lips, and saltwater eyes.
You are a social worker and I had all the signs
you should have recognized.
But still you let him take me to the garage
cocooned in the insulation of your minivan
where I would scream and he would hit me.
That night they came for your son
and you tried to save him.
I heard you were charged with a felony.
You don’t seem like a felon.
They put you in county jail
because the only way they could take your first-born son
was if they took you too.
I’m sorry they took you too.
I used to wish you were my mother.
You seemed so carefree and so fearless.
You said it yourself:
the only thing you needed was a car and a credit card.
No man, just money and gasoline.
My mom is afraid of the dark.
she still needs me to kill the moths in the pantry.
Sometimes, she asks me to sleep in her room
to keep the ghosts away.
I didn’t think she could handle me.
So I told you my secrets instead
quiet confessions on moonlit roads
as you drove me home in your minivan.
I told you that I worried about my mom and things that haunted her
and you promised:
“I’ll help. I can take care of her.”
But you’re the one who needs help.
You’re the one who needs taking care of.
You are carefree and fearless but
carefree is so careless
fearless, so reckless.
You might be free
but you are in a death spiral.
I’ll take this as a warning
and become an astronomer.
I will spend my life studying the moon:
I’ll scrutinize every passing quarter, crescent, gibbous
triangulate on each plain and highland
calculate the curvature of each crater.
Call me Apollo
because I will map the moon better than the astronauts.
And when the time comes, I will know.
I will never confuse the moon for some bright boy again.
I will run my fingertips along the ridges of the patriarchy's jeans,
look him straight in the eye
and smirk because
there are things that I want to do to the patriarchy.
Like fight
and dismantle.
And maybe fuck… because the patriarchy
kisses so well and I like the way he touches my butt.
Actually, I want to fuck the patriarchy.
I want to fuck the patriarchy
because there are men in Congress
who can legislate my uterus.
I want to fuck the patriarchy because
women get seventy-seven cents
to a man's dollar.
I want to fuck the patriarchy because
for every female CEO
there are four male CEOs
named John.
Fuck the patriarchy
because I am horny and he's right here.
The patriarchy is easy to fall into
and I don't even notice it
because the patriarchy is everywhere.
But sometimes the patriarchy is in
places I don't expect.
He will offer to drive me home and open doors
and try to buy me dinner
oh - I mean try to buy me with dinner
as though a twenty-three dollar entree
is the price of my body.
The patriarchy is persistent
and I am very good at saying no.
But what do I tell the patriarchy,
when he tells me softly that he is a feminist
and asks me to calculate the tip
because he thinks I am better at math?
What do I tell the oppressor who does not want to oppress?
Tonight, I want to take the patriarchy back to my bed,
tie him up and fuck him until he is red in the face
and begging for me
and I will make him come.
The patriarchy will come for me.
The patriarchy will come for me
when people ask me "why didn't you change your last name?"
and the answer "I didn't want to" is not enough.
The patriarchy will come for me
when I am the only female engineer in the room
and they still call me bossy for voicing my opinion.
The patriarchy will come for me again and again.
I will hold the patriarchy's orgasm between my lips and make him scream my name.
They will scream my name
because I will fuck and then fuck up the patriarchy.
Samgen Chin is a Chinese-American poet and performer based in mostly-Boston. She writes about identity, trauma, and her mom. Outside of writing, Samgen organizes slam and spoken word, paints water colour and creates interactive art.
