when i was growing up

Poetry by Janna Datahan

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there was a superstition my mother
               passed
on to me and my sisters
               she said that
when things
                 break
the shattering of a
ceramic plate
               a stone chipping a window
the sole of a shoe
                               separating  after a hundredth step
it was the ancestors’ way of saying
we saved you from a worse fate of
                a broken bone
a crash
                a heartbreak
and maybe even death
but what do the ancestors mean
when our bodies
                  break
instead of  objects
like the  six women who bled
                 to death
from bullets that             pierced them
as they were mending
other people’s
bodies with their             hands
the old man who was
                   pushed
during his daily morning walk
his head
                 hitting the concrete hard
he died two days later
or the man who was
                  slashed with a knife in the
face from ear to              ear
on his
                    way to work
                 a             scarred
smile on his face
                 for the rest of his life
is it because of our
                 love of cheap
                                 fixes
and our obsession with
                 discarding
things
that the ancestors are
telling us
we have to
                 break
                                 everything
in order to save
                 ourselves
to               break
the idea that
our
                 women are dolls
                 you  can toss after you
tire of us
                 our bodies
                                 absorbing
bullets and fists
                 like an unwelcome embrace
to             break the
idea that our people are a
                 virus that     
claimed millions of
                 lives
to shatter the idea that
                 we are a monolith
that my heartbreak
                 from the boy with
china blue eyes
is not the same
                 heartbreak
my sister
                 received from the girl with
                 flaming hair and freckled cheeks

 i want you to know
of the fear i have in my heart
                  as i walk into shared
                  spaces
my brown body
                 transformed into a
                 trigger of
                                 hate
                 from people
who do not know
                 who     i                am
or what this        body
had endured
i want you to know
this fear is mine
it is also my daughters’
                 my sisters’
                              my mothers’
                                               my grandmothers’
and everyone who may not speak the same mother tongue as i do
                 but share ancestors who watch over us
                 as we break
                              things in petition for their protection
our bodies weary and burning with intense fever of fear

About the Writer

Shattering by Jiesha Stephens

Janna Datahan has been writing poetry since she was seven years old. She has since moved on from writing about trees to her experiences as a single mother and an immigrant in the United States, as well as occasionally writing pieces about American boys who break her heart. When not writing, she is usually sword fighting or crocheting.