stop writing / about your mother they said

.
[...] my head up toward the sun
which brightly cancels
if you’re reading this then
I survived my life into yours
you who told your brother you were hungry
so he stole a roasted chicken
so he tucked it under his sky
-blue shirt & it’s not

your fault reader you had
to work you had to get up
in the blood-blue dawn to warm
up your car you who held
instant coffee with both hands
ate your lunch of Wonder Bread dipped
in condensed milk in the parking lot
alone you bought me pencils reader I could

not speak so I wrote myself into
silence where I stood waiting for you mom
to read me do you read me now do you
copy mayday mayday you who dreamed
of dipping shreds of chicken
into fish sauce as you hid in the caves
above your village you white
devil girl starving ghost

but I shouldn’t have been so
hungry you said looking up
at the leaves vermilion through the brother
-blue sky I hated my hunger the veins
on your fists the jar all amber crush
empty as a word
-less mind stop writing
about your mother they said

but I can never take out
the rose it blooms back as my own
pink mouth but how
can I tell you this when you’re always
to the right of meaning
as it pushes you further into white
space [...]

Trecho de "Dear Rose", Ocean Vuong, 2017
.