//
what if one day memory folds onto itself
like a sieve and down my skin-drain goes
objective correctness and true shadows
and your absence has built a new present
– not grief – in the leftover sediment, and
dictates the future in bichrome sepia
//
father of my father smiled at me 2 months
before he died, the way a stranger would
be smiled at. i was one already before his
memory birthed new blood, but the kind
you trick yourself into pronouncing strange,
the kind you look away from, ashamed—
//
my father is forgetting names. when drunk
i am his sister and he boasts my entry
into dentistry college because his teeth are
giving up their enamel. teeth bond us together
as he bites me and says her name, animalistic
then the next day he forgets mine, animal
//
my name sounds a lot like animal. i pretend
i can distinguish what meaning truly is
when i turn my head at every mention
of beast, creature, skinless being. i fail.
what if one day i don’t know you?
what if one day you leave?
t.r. san is a transsexual poet based in yangon who writes horror without meaning to. its name translates to exemplary grace & is homonymous with animal.