I have dreamed of a painful but hopeful recovery that might last for decades even centuries
But I might most probably not live to see any of it unfolds
It’s OK
For whatever last bits of connections that left in me
Has been fading away day by day
If a home is filled with love and warmth like homes supposed to be
Who wants to ever leave home but to wander in despair?
If hometown is still a place that holds up memories of the ones you secretly admired and daydreamed
Who wants to ever be far away from that intense heartbeats?
If motherland is a land who nourishes you with rich culture and traditions, who allows you to find your own path, either back to her or higher in the sky
Who could ever escape that land?
I’m letting myself go, by cutting myself into pieces
Most of the pieces I leave them behind
For the new me, I do not need much
I do not need much
I lost count of the times that my heart was ripped apart
When I look down, all I can see is an open wound
That might never be able to heal
When my grandparents’ house where my parents got married, where I grew up in and hoped to bring up my children
Was taken, to build a majestic courthouse or a tenth mall in the town or whatever it was that I don’t give a damm about
My heart was ripped open
When the hill behind my grandparents' house where my grandpa was buried, where I spent many of my youth days hanging about by myself, where I found solace sitting next to my grandpa’s resting bed
Was cut to flat to make a highway or overpass or whatever it was that I don’t have the slightest interest in
My heart was ripped open
When the streams we used to cool our feet in, to wander around and pick up wild mugwort leaves for grandma’s special dessert
Vanished with the hills where my grandpa was put to rest, dissipated with my grandparents’ community that once lived and thrived for a rather short period of time but carried a certain amount of traditions
My heart was ripped open
When the deepest mountains we used to explore, immerse and felt the ultimate sense of belonging
Were looted all of their wild lives and all of their trees but replaced with deadly stillness, finger-thin-bamboos, and less-than-ten-year saplings so to be harvested in the tenth year mark
My heart was ripped apart, cold
When the streets I used to linger, parks we used to gather - yes, that park, with that basketball and football fields, emerged in many of the fantasies
Has been torn down one by one, because they were in the way of newer and profitable projects that also for the look and his/their political performance
My heart was ripped apart
When the neighbors and our most amazing pack in the whole universe, we once thought was stronger than blood
Was dismantled and scattered like lego pieces, in such an unhappening and remote town, who would have thought
My heart was ripped apart
When the sweet-bitter youthfulness that we planned to preserve and nostalgize after we get old
Turned into a decaying nasty taste in the throat, too fast too soon, didn’t escape the inevitable fate to most of the cherishable
My heart was ripped apart
I thought truth was the one they took away
But memories too, memories that define one and keep one warm
Stripped away in front of one’s eyes
Piece by piece
Some might still be ok to live without truth
But no one can live without one’s own existence
You wouldn’t call that living
The dispersed memories is taking the life out of an individual
Just like the disappeared culture and traditions took the life out of a civilization
In the eerie dusking when darkness is asserting in silence
We suddenly found ourselves in empty shells
Drifting in the luxurious ghosty streets
With no purpose
And no meaning
Oct 22nd 2020
