Let There Be Light

I. 

The morning when he walked out of the room, all he could think of was to put an end to some ghostly images which disturbed him for a very long time; those flimsy images were formed into the egregious and frightening human monsters and they always showed up in front of him everywhere; for example, he would shower and see an emerging Capricorn from the drain pipe whose head was distastefully replaced with the girl who always felt like a springtime water lily in the pond at the high school where he was used to being bullied and no one would look at him except that breezy girl who would give him an sympathetic yet futile grimace after she glanced the bruises on his forehead and passed by without saying a word, which was all sympathetic yet futile, which stung but was all he needed, especially back at the moment when he left the room, strutted pompously on the sidewalk, targeted the first building, walked into the lobby, pulled out the .45, and started to shoot the fleeing, screeching, anonymous human monsters, and the acoustics felt just right, like the thematic melody of the video game, called “Let There Be Light”, in which he played a handsome raider and he could use an enhanced shotgun to terminate all those terrorist aliens, who were ethereal but bright. 


II. 

I am a Chinese guy with an effeminate face 
I work as a data entry clerk
I have no spare income to save the world
I jerk off at web porns before sleep

Why can’t you be like Nick Wong and get a job at the Goldman Sachs?
My parents sighed during the ritual Sunday dinner. 
Why can’t you marry me to let me get the green card?
My Vietnamese ex-girlfriend made a fuss at the TGI Friday’s. 
Why don’t you suck my cock? You faggot?
My neighbor onetime cornered me in the staircase. 

Interminable hardworking and meticulous calculations are basic recipes for the Land of Plenty. 
In China, they don’t play by the same rules but I will not start talking about Back When…...

Nowadays bathed in blood can be so easy and accessible
The memory is not even long lasting and nothing is legendary
Still many questions leave unanswered and unsatisfied. 

An afternoon I sat in the living room. 
Thought about the future and unknown
From the TV delivered some bullets
Tear dropped and heart stopped

Let there be light
Let there be light
Let there be light

The promise is so ethereal but bright.

Paris is Burning I--Overture

Dressed to the nine for the ball on 145^th Street

Runway down without turning back

Gold trophies glistened at the end of tunnel

Comments and catcalls fiercely mixed and maxed

Honey, time to strike a pose 

When you bent over, hard to tell if you were a pimp or whore

mother or son/executive or secretary/president or soldier

REALNESS—Blending in with your straight counterparts, you erased all the flaws, mistakes, giveaways to make your illusion perfect. 

In those overextending and overbearing hours of vogue

You created a Legendary, a status in the ball, a household name for yourself

Ruffled feathers and flowing chiffons could only reveal—

The queen of the night had her grace on the house

O-P-U-L-E-N-C-E

You own everything

Everything is yours.

Paris is Burning II--Main Act

What did we see in the ball?

Chin up, lips pout, you proudly announced your name:

House of Xtravaganza, Overness, Pendavis, Saint Laurent, Dupree, Adonis, LaMay

Mother of the House made her name by opening wide her white mink coat to shelter clueless, listless, homeless waifs

let them find some warmth under her coat’s silver lining

Liz Taylor was famous, so was Mother Pepper LaBeija

What did we tell in the ball?  Butch queen in drag first time at the ball?

Reading came first: flirt with passive aggressiveness, simmer a pot of anger

Shade later arrived to knock frienemies out, get’em anyway, hit’em below the belt—

“I don’t have to tell you’re ugly, but I don’t have to tell you because you know you’re ugly. [1] 

But never punch a girl on her nose

Nor drag a bitch’s hair to mop the floor

Houses were street gangs

Competitions morphed into war

We popped, spinned, dipped, and vogued.

High. Physical High. Seductive High. Addictive High

Good Vibe

Dance moves crafted honorable and stylish battles

Two hands squaring cheekbones marked an eternal close-up—we were always ready

 

Who did we want to be in the ball?

Judges might pull their 10s to work ego boost for us

Outside the auditorium, we knew we could never vogue like Naomi or Paulina

Fabulous extravaganza and movable feast ninja

were mirages everyone stared at, attracted to, hardly lived on

 

REALNESS—Life on the piers in West Chelsea was to live and learn

Clients satisfied with our petit bones, licked our silky skin

Wined and dinned for us acting demure

But be careful—

Never let those dirty fingernails move down and dig; they always freaked out afterwards; beat us up

And we had to jump off to fire escapes. Forgot the 40 bucks left behind.

 

Nobody was really protected

Mother could only put on her mascara and hoped for the best

 

Only in the ball could we laugh our vaginas off

With push-up bras, bruise proof purple eye shadows, and right-sided buttons---

We were at wonderland, nurtured and worshipped like nobody’s business

The ballroom told us we were somebody

Until nasty bastards strangled us to death and hid our body under the mattress in some dingy hotel at West Chelsea—

for FOUR days

---

[1] From the movie

Paris is Burning III--Epilogue: A Manifesto

This is White America

And living is burning

Queen of the Night eventually pales

A title like this can’t really do shit except continues to ferment our defunct yet endless self-indulgence.

The ballroom told us we were somebody

And burning is dreaming:

 “I want to be fragilely beautiful like those Vogue models arching their twig backs and waited to be plucked by some trust fund suave boys”.

“I want to be wholeheartedly excited at my future like every 20-year-old white client I serve, to expect an upward ladder venture in any career, with only frat recklessness to worry about”.

“I want Louis Vuitton quality environment with no one cursing me freak or monster, forcing me to suck their dicks without pay, nor beating me with their bats, knives, and guns in the name of god’s will”.

“I want perfect cut diamond solid relationship with a man who loves me no matter what stage my operation is : he can put his fingers between my legs , feels that little remnant, and still wants to come at me”.

“I want a world of luxury where countless designer clothes, handbags, cosmetics, jewelries, travel trips…… cascade and flood to purge my memory …… everything, to my complete oblivion “.

“I want to have it ALL for myself; feel natural and naturally happy”.

And dreaming was promising—

I want to be

I want to have

I want so much more

This is what I want 

“When it comes to minority, We as people, for the past 400 years, is the greatest example of behavior modification in the history of civilization, We have had everything taken away from us, and yet we have all learned how to survive. That’s why in the ballroom circuit, it is so obvious that if you have captured the great white way of living or looking or dressing or speaking, YOU IS A MARVAL”. [1]

This is White America.

 

 

 

 

---

[1] Direct quote from the movie

The Son

(For the Night of November 4, 2008)

The late economist's son made it.

A historic return in the worst marketplace

Under millions of stars and flashlights,

the sweat on his face sparked

as if the light of knowledge

finally came out from a crystal ball

He asked himself, "Did my father cry?"

It was not long ago when his skin color,

or his father's, or his people's

would define what they could be

From early on he sensed the chosen,

seized the opportunities

and worked hard for it

His old school charm smile and

immaculate teeth defied prejudice

Fended off ghetto karma

When he posed at the podium

He didn't lose his mind

Nor rally frenzied supporters

The speech was calm and somber

The gratitude was mellifluous

Like spring rain soaked in to nourish

this dry and decaying land

Trust would be repaired, he was convinced

Like flowers would blossom, as if

With all the success, he still secretly hoped

his father would shed tears of joy

for him.

 

Ho

Some people call her Ms. Ho. Some just skip the first part.

Her last name, in Chinese, shares the same pronunciation as river. But in writing, it’s composed of two words: Man and Can. She knows. Man can have her. Man can treasure her. Man can judge her. Man can ditch her.

Man can, and she doesn’t really care.

She likes to see herself as a river. Flowing water naturally generates unpredictability and organically creates freedom.

Growing up in a first generation Chinese immigrant family, she learns a great deal about boundary, diligence, discipline, principle. Her simple and hardworking parents make sure she realizes a woman can only have something faster and more efficiently if she marries well. Her most important tactics in life, in their view, are to earn a good reputation for a man who can give her everything.

That’s not the plan she has for herself.

She has gone down on men many times. She can. She knows.

And she also needs to leave her family and Portland behind, move on and not look back—like Williamette River, joining Columbia, running all the way to the Pacific Ocean. 

Her Asian look, petite figure, and olive smooth skin earn her frats one after another.  Boys like to put their arms around her as if she were the baby white mouse strangled and ready to be eaten by voracious pythons.  They also like to ride her from behind. Her tight gate requires their fully erect ground meat penises to squeeze a bit, but the friction and pressure feel just right. The excitement always arrives as if they try on some brand new sneakers for a virgin run.  And she moans like a seventh grade who finds her unnamed orgasm, ecstatically, smoothly, confidentially. 

She’d call out “push harder!” And those equestrians with high adrenaline and insurmountable testosterone will then lift her pelvis and arch their backs to increase speed, and add strength to the palpitation. The drumming between her butt muscle and their lap thighs also reflect in the equal vibrancy of her bobbing and bumping tits. They love to finger her teeny brown nipples to harden them into raisins, and incur specks of goosebumps like pebbles scattering around the soft swamps of areolas.

They come, mostly inside of her, collapse, shrivel and pant: “You are the sweetest piece of ass I’ve ever had”,

She comes, only when she is thinking “I am in New York right now”.

Everyone gives her some money, nominally for lunch, gas, grocery, drinks, lingerie, contraceptives. She saves most of it in a special account opened without telling her parents.  She knows when the number hits 5 digits it’ll be the time she just walks out of everything and everyone.

For now, at the side corner from the club Styx she just needs to kneel down and lick hard that turtle head popping up from this boy’s underpants for her future travel expenses. 

London/New Year/2007

Suddenly

the center of an eye radiated burning flame

Pungent smoke blurred motion of the fire-wheel

Glamorous mess accentuated depth of the dark

Meaning regressed, left

only with billows of enthusiasm and flooded adrenaline

Right now who could mourn

for the plummeting value of human connections, or of—

Love?

 

A vagabond swayed and wandered, humming a hymn of Apocalypse

But Piccadilly Circus was not set up for gunfights or landmines

Instead drunk bums were herded and jammed into paddy wagons

Predators grunted triumphantly/ preys growled and wrangled futilely /fugitives (like myself) sighed, sneered,

sought shelter in overpowering shadow of anonymous bumping and grinding

The countdown arrived when chaos blossomed

Right now who would be ecstatic

for the coming of a new beginning, or of—

mass destruction?

 

Seeing each other in the eyes, we knew

Parted minds tasted sorrowful penitence

Disconnected souls licked bittersweet regret 

But this was not the right time

We needed to feel happy and grateful; toast to health, togetherness, and valour

Right now who should make judgment of

anyone’s simple, direct, yet shallow reaction?

 

Lines climbed up my face, lurked under the cheekbones

in the brightness of fireworks

Suddenly

it dawned on me—

When my heart burned with the city,

You knew how our affairs would end