I was born against my will,
9 years and 2 days after I died,
bringing a revolution to my home,
denouncing myself to everybody that I knew
in order to be deemed acceptable.

When I was 4, my father taught me
to turn bourgeois tendencies
into cultural muscle I could use,
to sculpt myself into reflections of those that surrounded me.

At age 12, I awoke early
and abandoned my bed of newspapers
plastered with my father’s face
so that I could walk my unlit streets,
hiding to avoid being called counterrevolutionary.

I was 16, when I saw my father
clinging to the wall,
crudely recreated on a big-character poster,
announcing his accusations of committing treason to his country.

I promptly copied down the information
and created a copy of the poster to hang on my ceiling,
to gaze at when I poured myself more Oolong.