Kwangingak

The bird. Somethingto be sad about. Where will you be by then? he asked. In my goddamn life, I said. Gift-giving, self-giving, the bastard son of a gun. Mad with an inner hunger and there is no one else to know. The bird bitten by the dog, the forest guard put it to my care. Who does he think he is, Tom Hanks of the Green Mile?

Count me dead, Grandmother said. She was negotiating for her life’s barest needs.Take me with you. Couldn't tell her I have no house I have no money and there is no man.

Is this the way to look for love? Stalking the gasoline station, lugging your white shirts under an arm? Like I was your Filipino housemaid. He looks happy the ease of one who never runs out of things coming his way. So much Literature and so little life, we know so much and understand so little we cannot grow cannot move beyond the walls of our self-imposed silences. Amazing that the scraps survived him survived me. Kwangingak.