Vietnamese-American

• At the age of two I learned
• of loss and shadows, how both
• can exist without the light.
• You always had to be
• two steps ahead Dad said
• if you wanted to survive.
• Stories that were never mine
• I carried anyways, one part
• the past I inherited, the rest
• a future that had no use for dreams
• and romance. Home
• was no longer a roof
• but instead a hunger longing
• for something more than history.