The thing left unsaid on new year’s

By Sophie Tong (@sphx_tw)

so you said

this      is the language

I am to sculpt us in

starting

from blood to bone

I       split your tendon

into god and      son, your eclipse

coaxed open,               your arrow

‘gainst the tenth                              sun. 

fù, [1]

you said you were

the only one         who ate

so much       that a seesaw

could never rise for you                    again.

I didn’t know you meant

kneeling               in the betrayal

of tones,                     tongues      cracking

your horizon, as you watch me

crawling,           surely crawling,     uphill

towards a sun that is mine to own.

fù,

you said the moment 

I opened my mouth

love became syllabic

suppressing

the din of our mothers,

loves, doves on paper

redder than shame.

fù,

you who sculpted us,        us in yellow

blooms of bruise, borderless

eruption, eruption of day. Syllables

crying               cascading

   from blood to bone

  from sea to sonorous 

sea:

“Fù

qīn, yóu shǐ zhì zhōng, nǐ shì wǒ de 

Fú.” [2]

[1] 父, pa

[2] 父/親，由始至終，你是我的/福。

Pa/pa, all along you were/ my blessing.

Sophie Tong is a writer from Hong Kong, currently studying in the UK. She often finds herself dissecting complications of the microscopic - love and time - under the human lens.