Writing

I watched her struggle

writing her name

always trying to perfect

m

But she scribbles it with four humps

I told her

"ma’ it is two like a camel"

but she gave up

I remember being in the third grade

and after homework was all done

I didn’t go out to play. 

My father had me teach my mother

what I learned in school that day.

But she gave up on that too.

I remember my sick days

being spent at the dr.’s office

or the DMV trying to translate 

big words into a language my mother will understand

I am sorry my vocabulary wasn’t big enough for you then. 

It wasn’t until my freshman year in high school

I began to question

why my mother wasn’t “smart”

I am sure she was,

but according to this land

education is measured by degrees

She was smart enough to hide

when everyone ran

from the Khmer Gahom

She was smart enough

to flee a land where

people were killing those 

who spoke the same tongue.

She told me

she is afraid to be called smart.

Those are the people they kill. 

No one kept this story written

all mouths were closed. 

Because those who spoke,

were killed too.

They were killing people 

who spoke the same tongue

who wrote their own names

who breathed the same Cambodian air.

They were killing each other

and she watched them struggle.