Table of Contents
1. man-i-fest des-tiny
2. English Breakfast
man-i-fest des-tiny
Man Man
I I
Fest Find
Des Destruction &
Tiny Tiny
man, do I find destruction
continued by a tiny-handed-money-bought-in leadership
the worst form of civilized (de/con)struction
triumphed is now a tainted word
take out the i he d
and you are left with someone who is not a man:
(i) no sense of self
(he) no higher calling
(d) no genetically, socially, or symbolically pre- or post-
illusion of manhood
man should never have been synonymous with human
ity
itty. bitty. tiny.
English Breakfast
the first time I noticed that 85C’s milk tea smelled like Hong Kong was during my second year in college.
isn’t it funny that English Breakfast smells like protest and smoke.
the stench and sugar that coats the streets with tear gas and egg tarts,
it reminds me of gasoline and home.
watching the blackness of dried leaves bleed from an Englishman’s breakfast,
I wait for the hot to turn warm and I drink.
Caffeinated and Alive. diluted with White ideology.
milk causes stomach aches for most Asian people
but not mine.
everything I know about Black Lives Matter is from my White schools.
isn’t it funny that I dream of swimming in milk tea.
sugar, milk, and a pool of Black water in the backyard.
the warmth and cloudiness of my family’s new home.
built on Blackness. The caffeination keeps most of us alive.
isn’t it funny.
this joke makes my stomach roar
I drink Englishmen for breakfast. not to deteriorate, but to fuel. consuming it with sugar, the sweetness makes it easier to digest.
Englishmen have thrown Black tea into the ocean.
I am waiting for the sun to brew justice
but I am a boat.
sailing on the back of Black water
searching for a home drowned in blood
There is nothing funny about pools of Black water called English Breakfast.
There is nothing funny about my home smelling like English Breakfast.
The most important meal of the day is breakfast.
We are consumed
drowned
to fuel the Englishmen to stay awake
Description
"man-i-fest des-tiny" and "English Breakfast" are both about my feelings of being an Asian American in the United States. For one, I wrote it in 2019 about POTUS and the other after reading Claire Kim's "The Racial Triangulation of Asian Americans."
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