He began to write our story before I ever understood the rules of sound
My father always sailed carefully
along the coasts of language
the outlines of our
motherland
Righteous sound
Built-in partitions
Of a parallel life
American born
Chinese
Proximal to both
Inhabiting the land of none
He taught himself geography
He learned to place stones
In a beautiful sequence
Each syllable
Etched and carved
Deep into the
Waves of sound
Rising and falling
Against the tide
He paved my path smooth
Before i was tall enough for
The Eyes of Others
He taught me the Rules of the
written language
Gifted me Grammar books for fun
Told me to speak with
Assertiveness. Confidence.
then i began to create
And sculpt
Myself to be seen
Then heard
My sound remained half
fractured for
only a fraction of my time
i don’t tell many that
English was never my
first language.
i spent my early years
at home where my mother
trained my mouth
and mind
to inhale
then exhale
Duality
Language of each end of my hyphenated identity
taiwanese
–
american
Split across
Piercing dash
through my parallel entirety
do two halves
truly Create
A whole?
I cross the ocean now with fluency
Sometimes I think about being a pilot.
or perhaps
A captain
Soaring across the lands like they are my own.
Each time
Laying down my stones
Against chronology
This is my story.
Today I find solace at sea
Where the stones tend to sink
And my body surrenders to float
To travel not by pathways but
Compliance
to the motions of the water
uncharted
and undefined
neither
Or.
Devon Chang, ’27