Written by Amy C

Ode on an Urn, on which someone who’s not got any talent at all (if you’re being honest) has painted a planet and a wonky arrow, it points to nothing. The label: ‘On living on Earth, 2025’ It’s their most prized artefact, for some reason.

For most of my life the belief: that you had to be good and follow the rules. That is just what you did! Not even an obligation that is just how things work. It makes sense.

25 years later.

Thoughts.

From my perspective.

No, it doesn’t make sense.

Or follow any kind of accepted structure.

I stayed up way to late to write all this.

I handwrite some stuff too.

Anyway,

Sorry,

The point.

Okay

Okay,

Okay.

I understand,

I have the,

(¿comó se dice?)

(How about German?)

(I’m also pretty good at those funny dead languages.)

the obvious,

The target.

I try not to think about who will hit

Bullseye

Or whatever you call it.

Huh,

Eyes,

(You were thinking it, it’s okay if you’re racist, check it, unlearn it, idk go to therapy actually it’s not my problem to fix)

Two halves.

Exactly half?

The puzzle piece is upside down.

(Where are you from)

The stranger emboldened to greet me in a mother tongue, from a someone else’s mother, from a land that is

Just a different country entirely,

Its just also in,

Asia.

I I have never known why but,

Mother tongue,

I always think of a snake

I’m terrified of snakes.

I have nightmares about them.

I have a lot of nightmares.

That’s a different topic.

(Intersectionality, or get out. Hard boundary. Hadrian’s wall/ better example that still stands in full)

(I didn’t get a degree in Maths, or Science)

Recently,

Sleep paralysis. Fun.

I wonder what my brain is trying to tell me.

(That Adam and eve stuff is crap, they will always blame, villainise and cast us out and then be like oh there’s a book from a man who you can’t see follow his rules or die slut like c’mon. Like a good bridge. A project that involves all of them. But me.)

They butcher the pronunciation,

This I know, at least.

And it is never,

Ever,

Said,

(It is often shouted, accompanied by laughter, it makes me feel small, perhaps,

well not perhaps,

that is the intention?)

(It would be naive to believe the former, just look at the headlines! It’s blatant! They lie! Why was I raised to only over follow the rules, I thought you had to follow the rules to succeed! Why are those who break the rules in charge! The number one rule: be kind & good. Morality, humanity)

(It is screaming, all the time!)

With love.

I know this.

The flags, in this case.

Aren’t used,

With love.

(Where are you really from)

They are just confirming,

They’ve already decided what the answer is.

They have not thought about how to react to a different answer,

answer they don’t expect.

Yikes. In capital letters.

Chance,

Has dictated more than it’s fair share,

(Note to self: Google a god that was in charge of chance?)

I think ,

I am visible.

I am desperate,

On every layer,

Of everything.

From the ground

Up to the corners of my eyes.

(Emphasis on the eyes, I mean, that’s what you were thinking, right?)

(Are you Chinese or Japanese)

(So, I just start to shut them, squeezing them tight, in all school photos, they can’t tell the difference anyway, that’s funny to them , something I cannot control and repeat a whole side of my family, my culture, my …. Country ?)

I try my hardest,

For reasons I did not have even the thoughts to describe,

To be what they saw me as.

Other,

Foreign,

Alien,

Barbarian, Amazon,

A myth, a mystery to be unraveled, displayed, in a clear case to be stared at forever by the blissfully unaware.

At the expense,

Clashing

Scylla or rocks

Both and a whirlpool

Heroic.

(Multiple dangers at once.

That’s how you prove yourself.)

With how I felt

With who I knew, I know, riaI am.

(I was born here, I lived most of my life in London!)

(Go. Home. Back to the orient. You’re not welcome here)

(She’s lived here 20 years, her kids are in secondary school)

(Why do you need to lead with her race?)

(She died, they let her down!)

I have nightmares about that.

The image is burned onto the inside of my eyelids, it hurts to blink.

We’re even minimised and dismissed by our own,

Not follow up,

Not duty of care,

Does nobody understand duty of care?

(I had burnt myself out by 16.)

At least they might be okay.

It means I was visible.

Being wounded as a child and only just now finding the

Vocabulary to describe the isolation it resulted in.

It means I’m visible

I was always visible.

Even, now.

The billions of years of life.

Of co-habitation.

Of nature.

(I am always screaming)

(I am not free. I am imprisoned, I’m starting to realise, like the dagger has been turned towards me I wasn’t prepared, I have always been here. Agamemnon, the king will always win. Even if I have a dagger, even if I catch him unaware. He has a son. There is no escape. I have tried every method. I am trapped, inside the belly of the beast, watching the city be raped)

(Not until they all are)

(Not until it all burns down in a glorious, cleansing blaze)

Text © Amy C