Trevor

selection from Trevor
by Ocean Vuong

Trevor the hunter. Trevor the carnivore, the redneck, not

 a pansy, shotgunner, sharpshooter, not fruit or fairy. Trevor the meateater but not

veal. Never veal. Fuck that, never again after his daddy told him the story when he was seven, at the table, veal roasted with rosemary. How they were made. How the difference between veal & beef is the children. The veal are the children

of cows, are calves. They are locked in boxes the size of themselves. A body-box, like a coffin, but alive, like a home. The children, the veal, they stand very still because tenderness depends on how little the world touches you. To stay tender, the weight of your life cannot lean on your bones.

We love eatin what’s soft, his father said, looking dead

into Trevor’s eyes. Trevor who would never eat a child. Trevor the child with the scar on his neck like a comma. A comma you now

//

put your mouth to. That violet hook holding two complete thoughts, two complete bodies without subjects. Only verbs.


Read all of it here. 

I Am, I Am Not

I Am, I Am Not
a poem by a 6th grader I know

I am American
strong and proud.
Devoted to this country,
I always root for the American team.

I was born here,
lived here all my life.
Never slept anywhere else.
Never loved a place as much.

I am not American
ancestors are Chinese.
Hints of them in my life,
happy to be different.

I love Chinese things.
Food is delicious,
clothes are beautiful.
Disappointed at some American things.

I am both,
American and not.
Proud and disappointed,
loving and not.

Speak Up

Speak Up
by Janet Wong

*You're Korean, aren't you?
Yes.
*Why don't you speak
*Korean?
Just don't, I guess.
*Say something Korean.
I don't speak it.
I can't.
*Cmon. Say something.
Halmoni. Grandmother.
Haraboji. Grandfather.
Imo. Aunt.
*Say some other stuff.
*Sounds funny.
*Sounds strange.
Hey, let's listen to you
for a change.
*Listen to me?
Say some foreign words.
*But I'm American,
*can't you see?
Your family came from
somewhere else.
Sometime.
*But I was born here.
So was I. 


Found here.