Ma

I believe I inherited a lot from you: this sun-scorched skin, these tear-stained eyes, this tidal wave of hair. This defiance, the courage to pick rice cake crumbs on dirt just to know what sweetness tastes like; to know goodness within the bland, bitter soil, even if it is only the discarded. I believe a part of my flamboyance came from you; a gift, an accumulation. Despite all the violence, what comes out of it is softness. Maybe this way of shaping language was learned from you too: to see through what is apparent, to make meanings beyond what there is. Ma, more than anyone else, I ask you to take me in your arms. Trace your fingers through my hair once again to ease my temperamental life, and tell me, please tell me, I am good enough.