Aftermaths Poem by Bryan Thao Worra

Sometimes, I want to tell you.
Laying by your side, it‟s a mystery to explain
Why I gave up my poetry for so long.

It‟s a mystery to explain why I told you my mother is dead,
When I really don‟t know what happened to her in those jungles.

I loved you, telling you everything I knew about myself,
Only to find, as the years went on, how little I really knew.

I can‟t dream of my father, his face was blown off by an
Anonymous enemy rifle before a picture could be taken.

I don‟t have the voice to sing songs to you,
Or the stories, to tell our children who their grandparents

Really were.

The past has no gifts for me except an amnesiac‟s freedom.
History has been swallowed into a speculative grave-

I don‟t have a trace anymore, except the tales of strangers
Who saw my heritage slowly burned away

Timber by timber.