Zoe Gurney

爸爸妈妈，你们快一点儿吧 (Mom and Dad, Please Hurry)

Posted on by WordPress Administrator

by Zoe Gurney

I want all I was robbed of.
I want to experience giving new year’s blessings for 红包.1
I want to cheer on dragon boat races during 端午节.2
I want to sweep the tombs of my ancestors for 清明节.3
I want to eat mooncakes with my family during 中秋节.4
I want to learn about my 家族.5,
I want to know the meaning of the name I was given upon birth,
if I was granted even that.

Take responsibility for your actions (or lack thereof).
Am I not your daughter, too?
为了让我进入这个世界，妈妈不是吃苦吗？6
I am owed answers.
I am owed the truth.
I am worth the effort of your search, am I not?

Then search.
Endure the pain and countless failures that precedes success.
永不放弃.7
Your daughter is waiting, but she does not have the strength
nor the stamina to wait forever in unresponsive silence
with only her anxieties whispering doubts
to her already fragile mind.

1 红包 (hóngbāo): red envelopes that symbolize good fortune and prosperity; during the Spring Festival (starts on the 23rd day of the 12th month of the traditional Chinese lunisolar calendar), red envelopes are filled with money and traditionally given to children by their older relatives

2 端午节 (Duānwǔ jié): Dragon Boat Festival, starts on the 5th day of the 5th month of the traditional Chinese lunisolar calendar

3 清明节 (Qīngmíng jié): Tomb-sweeping Day, occurs on the 1st day of the 5th solar term of the traditional Chinese lunisolar calendar

4 中秋节 (Zhōngqiū jié): Mid-Autumn Festival, starts on 15th day of the 8th month of the traditional Chinese lunisolar calendar

5 家族 (jiāzú): clan; family

6 为了让我进入这个世界，妈妈不是吃苦吗? : To let me to enter this world, didn’t Mama suffer?

7 永不放弃: Never give up.

May I Offer You a Rose

Posted on by WordPress Administrator

by Zoe Gurney

There once was a time when I spoke freely.
Without a care in the world, I would voice my
complaints, compliments, worries, and aspirations.
Seen. Heard. Living.

But now, with a maturing, thinking mind,
I realize that the world is unwilling to listen,
to see, to appreciate its beauty without
judgment or discrimination.
Its unfairness and inequity strike down the
weary
while raising the
corrupt.

And yet, amidst all the pain and temptations,
We choose to struggle to survive another day.
Even if we must embrace the
countless voices
that sweetly suggest succumbing to a
painless end,
We embrace life. We embrace community.
We work to embrace ourselves.

Today, I still work to claim my voice.
Although there are people who try to steal,
to discourage,
to erase,
to undermine me,
they are not my greatest threats.
Above all, I seek to remove a
claw of steel
locked in place by none other than
myself.

The claw rests gently on my throat. A constant
warning.
Disobedience is met with strangulation.
To voice my true self, I must accept the pain,
the bruises,
And remind myself that pain is inevitable but
suffering does not have to be.
Most bruises heal in time, and any that linger
shall serve as honorable battle scars when I
emerge victorious from the
soul-sucking whirlpool of my mind.

In this ever-changing, cruel world, I journey on.
Treasuring the beautiful array of colors that
shine through moments and people,
I crawl through the thickets of the rose bush
with the optimism that I will, one day,
be able to extend a thorn-pricked hand
to the steel claw and kindly offer
a rose in place of my neck.