Postcards from Saturn V
by Eric Tu
in my childhood, i wanted nothing more than
to survive the single digits, big hands, little hands,
ticking clockwise before the alarms went off
insecurity…alarm,
other kids holding knives…alarm,
drug deals at the park as my
friends and i hid in slides…alarm,
my friend’s little brother shot dead
in high school near Chicago Ave
and Lake Street…alarm
i hate that liquor store on the corner, standing
tall with profits, while the community buries
dead angels, watch hands that hold nothing
more than memories and new 40’s, pour some
out for broken wings in-memory
see, most days i just watched movies in my
room, because most days it wasn’t safe to
leave my room, and most days i just have
memories of days where i don’t feel anything
in learning to disarm bombs, i was self-taught
to silence them, to cut wires before they were set
for tomorrow, and in the stillness before the
clip, the pixelated wheat fields stopped growing
the first time i had a gun pulled on me, shoots too
out of focus from eighteen years of flashbacks to
notice that the rain stopped visiting this village
with an empty well
but in this movie, the boy-turned-samurai
puts the gun down and reaches for his liquid sword
the metaphor: yellow boys toy with their lives with
bullets in North Minneapolis, or in Southeast Asia
with sharpened edges, only to realize that their
words never run out of ammunition, learn that
their minds are sharp enough to decapitate any
opponent, that being passive and saying nothing
won’t hold our bodies up when we’re feeling hopeless
and don’t police sirens go off often enough?
don’t we get one-offed more often than we turn
the TV off, knowing we didn’t make the news?
and don’t bodies only touch to let us know that we
are still here? that we exist and not just in-memory?
i’m not sure anymore, i just know that i was here once,
that even as a ghost i was concrete long enough for the flashbacks
i hope the scratches don’t force this scene to skip,
because i’m not ready to be a memory just yet
to survive the single digits, big hands, little hands,
ticking clockwise before the alarms went off
insecurity…alarm,
other kids holding knives…alarm,
drug deals at the park as my
friends and i hid in slides…alarm,
my friend’s little brother shot dead
in high school near Chicago Ave
and Lake Street…alarm
i hate that liquor store on the corner, standing
tall with profits, while the community buries
dead angels, watch hands that hold nothing
more than memories and new 40’s, pour some
out for broken wings in-memory
see, most days i just watched movies in my
room, because most days it wasn’t safe to
leave my room, and most days i just have
memories of days where i don’t feel anything
in learning to disarm bombs, i was self-taught
to silence them, to cut wires before they were set
for tomorrow, and in the stillness before the
clip, the pixelated wheat fields stopped growing
the first time i had a gun pulled on me, shoots too
out of focus from eighteen years of flashbacks to
notice that the rain stopped visiting this village
with an empty well
but in this movie, the boy-turned-samurai
puts the gun down and reaches for his liquid sword
the metaphor: yellow boys toy with their lives with
bullets in North Minneapolis, or in Southeast Asia
with sharpened edges, only to realize that their
words never run out of ammunition, learn that
their minds are sharp enough to decapitate any
opponent, that being passive and saying nothing
won’t hold our bodies up when we’re feeling hopeless
and don’t police sirens go off often enough?
don’t we get one-offed more often than we turn
the TV off, knowing we didn’t make the news?
and don’t bodies only touch to let us know that we
are still here? that we exist and not just in-memory?
i’m not sure anymore, i just know that i was here once,
that even as a ghost i was concrete long enough for the flashbacks
i hope the scratches don’t force this scene to skip,
because i’m not ready to be a memory just yet