Once the lantern burned above the cedars
a single flame teaching the night
how to breathe between clouds and water
it was meant for travelers
a whisper through the fog of living
a lesson in not losing the way
But I impatient to serve
mistook the light for my own pulse
I carried it down the slopes
pressing it against my ribs
as though a heart could steady a storm
better than silence and stone
The wind found me easily
as it always finds those who offer warmth
it kissed me into embers
left my palms blistered with longing
my chest an altar to mistaken kindness
How foolish to think the body
could be the lantern
that blood could replace oil
that tenderness could burn forever
without the calm of the wicks knowing
Now I bow to the mountain
whose patience never spoke of blame
it merely kept its height
watching my small fire wander
watching the lost pass by untouched
Each bruise on me remembers a ship
that shattered where I should have shone
each scar a wave that mistook my warmth
for safe harbor
forgive me wind
for confusing mercy with martyrdom
Tonight I return the flame
to its stone cradle above the trees
let it hum for those still searching
I will tend it with breath not body
and learn at last
to be the keeper not the fire
Forgive me mountain
for I tried to love by burning
forgive me sea
for I mistook ruin for grace
forgive me self
for taking so long to see
that light was not meant to be pain
Bloodlined
in Heritage
They gave me a name wrapped in silk,
wrote prayers in a tongue I barely spoke,
burned incense I did not understand,
and told me to bow to the ghosts of men
who died before I was born.
I wore the weight of a dragon's shadow
while dreaming in a language not mine—
and my blood is pure.
I tore the name from my mouth,
spat out the bitter tea of exile,
and painted my voice in asphalt and neon.
I learned to laugh like the boys on TV,
built my house from borrowed slang and second chances,
and in that rebellion, I found my shape—
but my blood is pure.
Years passed like monsoons through empty fields.
I carved a flag from my father's grief and a son’s joy,
sang lullabies that never belonged to any country.
Yet at night, I still reached for
the ghost of a homeland I never truly held.
A question echoed in the marrow of my bones—
If my blood were pure.
Now I hold both truths like rivers in my palms
my father’s war, a son’s freedom,
the silence of old temples, the hum of city trains.
I am the prayer and the protest,
the lotus and the concrete.
And in this ache, I stand whole—
so my blood is pure.
Adrift
I sat with them, the ones who fled,
whose silence was carved by salt and dusk,
whose eyes held jungles never named,
and spoke of boats
small paper skins with candles cupped
like hearts that dared to glow
on waters black with memory.
These lanterns, I told them, drift
not just on rivers, but between
what burns and what sinks.
The flame will eat the boat
unless the sea does first
but whether fire or flood,
the boat is gone.
The past dissolves regardless.
Yet they hold the edge of the boat
fingerbones tight with fear and duty.
Not ready to let go,
not ready to lose the ache
that told them who they were.
And I, the child of their ache,
wait in the hush after war
for a permission never spoken.
The question is not the death of the boat.
That’s certain.
But will they choose
to place it in the water,
to watch it drift beyond
the lantern's last breath,
the wound’s last word?
Or keep it locked on land, smoldering.
They say nothing.
Only sip tea grown in lands
they no longer claim.
Their silence folds time
like the hands that once built
the raft, the rope, the hidden path
to the night of departure.
If they let it go
if the boat drifts out,
flickering with the mercy of release
perhaps we too,
the tethered children,
might find a wind
not made of exile.
But until then,
we wear their stories like erosion,
uncertain whether we are drowning
or burning,
or both.
So I light my own lantern,
and wait for theirs to touch the tide.
And for the greatest of all goods
peace, breath, becoming
I ask them softly:
let it go.
Let the boat go.
Not because it deserves to vanish,
but because we deserve to live.