#wordsoftumblr

My heart helping my brain because my soul said so

Stage 1: Denial I, 3 years old short chubby brat that everyone hated in an extended Hue family that stretched the perfume river son to the oldest uncle in the patriarch immigrant first born on American soil by divine lineage, I was the chosen one and the chosen one has a shiny electric toy car the most grandiose, expensive nonfunctional piece of childhood being the child destined for everything even while living under free and reduced lunches lifestyles I was given anything the everyday birthday boy with a plaid polo and khaki shorts I wore spoiled like a requirement and I rode my pretend brown humvee like American lost, loud and reckless I fought off my cousins like ruthless prince it was mine and I declared it so and for every sudden halt that this toy car shook I cried out for my father to fix everything privileged again for a good part of my childhood, I kept crying out for him even when he left... left for me for his other golden child left my mother for his other golden wife left my family in another golden state called Florida for Vietnamese fathers, entitling their first son is less about prioritizing love and more about ensuring their legacy Stage 2: Anger children bottle-fed with honey don’t know any better when their towers of babelling fall over they crawl back to wherever they can find ungrateful I remember yelling at my mom at Toy ‘R’ Us for not buying me a batman cover notebook I got used to having father spoil me so I got angry at mom for trying to make me fresh again at that very moment I learned the difference from what was sweet and what was real I learned love from my mother and the opposite from her counterpart Stage 3: Bargaining in my senior year at UC Berkeley i took this class called “June Jordan’s: Poetry for the People” it changed my life first lesson was finding where the truth lives second was to walk truth outside especially when it wasn’t used to sunlight in week 6, teacher said “write about something traumatic in your life” and like trauma, it wasn’t the first idea, second, third or fourth but it was the last idea that lives in a cave waiting for the dark so it come out to eat again I wrote a poem about my father and how he left my family the poem was called “Don’t Really” and the last line was “One day….I’ll say I love you too” very strong emphasis on: “One day” at this very moment I had learned that I turned the resentment towards my father into the resiliency to go on without him Stage 4: Depression Its been 15 years since my mother and I’ve seen my father and his side of the family but here we walk, into my cousin’s asian wedding reception at happy garden restaurant my mom’s gown’s an outfit she handmade entirely of decorated rose and lace I strap on my navy blue suit and wing tip shoes like armor chest out, I cross into the banquet hall with a smile made of dignity leading my queen to her throne vibrations from the chatter as everyone’s gaze shifts our direction she gets stopped every other roundtable to talk to an old familial face laughs like seeing the past my mother reports on my life like a pristine resume “he finishing his masters, teaches at university and bought a house” they look at me like a trophy and there he was, my father across the room at that very moment I accidentally felt right back into my dad’s expectations he got everything he wanted from his Golden Child god dammit... Part 5: Acceptance I’m 29 years old now and like most mornings at work I play tetris between my unread emails from 4 different accounts, daily task lists, voicemails, and google calendars and BAM! news flashed across my phone like an Siren Hurricane Irma, a Category 5 storm will rip through Orlando, Florida this weekend at that very moment I remembered the man that visited me in my house the day after my cousins wedding named Father tried to show me he cared by saying that my house wasn’t big enough to raise a family at that very moment I realized that he could die and leave me again at that very moment I learned how to forgive him at that very moment I learned what manhood was that it isn’t being the boy made of gold crying out for the certification of his deadbeat dad but a man that's willing to care for everyone more than himself at that very moment I called him on phone for the first time in years “I heard about the hurricane. Are you gonna be okay?”