Love, unfold yourself like a flower unto spring.
Let the sun cradle you when you ache for your mother’s arms.
Do not weep when you trace your bloodlines
but find only an empty picture frame
hanging in your grandmother’s house.

You are fighting battles to purge
your veins of trauma, of loss,
of lapses in memory that keep you awake at night.
You are an orphan, a child of ghosts
that are always by your side
haunting you with their impenetrable faces
and their vacant histories;
but love, you are strong.
Accept your heart, accept your past,
accept the knowledge that you may never sleep soundly
with the ghosts in your bed.
Love, let the moon sing you a parting song
before she shies away from the day
and journeys back to the homeland you never knew.

——-

Ally Ang is a 19-year-old sociology student at Wellesley College. She is a queer woman of color who spends most of her time dismantling systems of oppression and snuggling her dog. You can find her work at allyang19.blogspot.com.