Cascading (Practice for Extinction)

& the way we loved so hard it was prehistoric. Back when the earth still trusted us to hold up the sky.

On the cliffs, vertebrae of limestone, ribcage of the coast, like God was our harness, guaranteeing 

that we’ll never crash. I hit the ground so hard I open a void within myself. Sometimes, the 

body remembers before the mind, caving into a temporary tide, tumbling into waiting 

waters. Learning to become a ruin. Falling and falling until it became a prayer. 

Return. But it was my philosophy of sorts: to test gravity like belief, a trust 

fall. I crumble myself into the air. Did God know this is how heritage 

works? You pass down the fall. You pass down the cliff. You pass

down the faith that something will catch you just before 

impact. Because only when I am plummeting into the

sea’s blue mouth, do I recall that falling is just 

another form of light. ​​And extinction is just 

another way the body tries to be 

remembered, fossilized into a 

miracle. For what is 

devotion if not a 

soul waiting for 

the sky to 

take 

it?

老家/Old Home

In the house at the edge of memory

                  everything is alive before I wake up

The fan clicks, counting our sins.             

                  Chickens rehearse the end of the world.

In my dreams, the fields bend their backs.

                  Rice behaves the way our bodies do,

standing in water too long.

                  While I learn where the mud will hold my feet. 

At night, I sleep beside a window

                  with no curtains. The dark comes in

uninvited. Somewhere, something

                  is being prepared for tomorrow.

I eat what I am given.

                  I do what I am told. 

Why do we continue to leave?