Things  I'll  Never  Say

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The Awakening



by Jessica Hyejin Lee

My pillow was where I laid my head
After days of mindless academia
My mind running in dyslexia
I passed through the classroom doors and school bells
To the goal named Disillusion
Where my parents were ever-working ghosts never appreciated  

My pillow was where I imagined 
The future, where was the future? 
In an American dream where the parents' bones are worked to death 
Sweat, blood, bones, and time 
Sweat, blood, bones, and time 
Where the only things parents are proud of are 
Their children who become American holding hands with the people who laugh at their parents' accent 
And the new brown leather sofa they just purchased 
That matches the silver Victorian picture frames, long orange candlesticks, lilies from the garden, 
And all the adornments they put on one by one 
As they worked their jobs and built up these bricks one by one  

And what would happen if they were taken away from that house? 
9 years, 3285 days of work to build this household founded on love 
And the fear of being torn away from this 
The sweat, blood, bones, and time 
The sweat, blood, bones, and time 
Their bloody tears!  

My pillow was where I shed tears 
In the middle of the night I couldn't sleep 
When my mother's swollen ankles as big as her love for the family 
When my brother's eczema as red as his youth 
When my father's depression as deep as his isolation from society 
Had no room to be diagnosed 
Lost in the... vacuum of information, where are the doctors, hospitals, or health insurance? 
Does it matter? 
Time will not heal 
Time is only a measure of loops of capitalism, exclusion, abuse, enslavement 
Tic Tok Tic Tok 
Capitalism, exclusion, abuse, enslavement  

My pillow was where I did not lay my head 
Bulging veins in my fist high up, I revolted 
Look into my stares like a sharp bloody knife 
You will no longer lie 
My shouts will ring and crack the ground like an earthquake 
Into EXPLOSION! Fire! Fire! Fire! 
See the Truth 
Fear does not cross the border 
Handcuffs are an accessory that shine like diamonds on my wrists  

The history of revolution is engraved behind the bars 
This ice castle is as cold as hard metal blocks 
Fingernail writings like dental drill pain 
Paved onto the metal wall 'God will show' 
And dreams of freedom, Paris with the Eiffel Tower scratched onto this metal wall 
Yet so far away. This is a prison cell in Philadelphia city jail 
It reeks with smell of urine. Yours, theirs, or mine 
No dignity 
Or is this an initiation to join the revolution? 
No room for humiliation 
No pretense of cigars, champaign, and pearls of Great Gatsby charade 
Rise up! Revolt! 
The truth is too big to comprehend: tears and blood, and bones, and times 
Its explosion breaks the bars apart, consumes the guards and the concrete building, 
It burns radiant white 
The ignorant can eat the ash.  

I'm still on a bus glancing through the world 
Swaying with the movements of the bus and the sound of the engine 
The next person's newspapers still talk politicians—white noise 
But I have opened my eyes.

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