Inside Out & Back Again

Oh, my daughter, at times you have to fight, but preferably not with your fists.

This year I hope I truly learn to fly-kick not to kick anyone so much as to fly.

Mother says, People share when they know they have escaped hunger. Shouldn't people share because there is hunger?

Whoever invented English should have learned to spell.

Mother tells me, They tease you because they adore you.

Paperwork, paperwork with a woman who pats my head while shaking her own. I step back, hating pity, having learned from Mother that the pity giver feels better, never the pity receiver.

How can we scramble away like rats, without honor, without dignity, when everyone must help rebuild the country?

Everyone knows the ship could sink, unable to hold the piles of bodies that keep crawling on like raging ants from a disrupted nest. But no one is heartless enough to say stop because what if they had been stopped before their turn?

Mother warns how we act today foretells the whole year

Why no s for two deer, but an s for two monkeys? Brother Quang says no one knows. So much for rules! Whoever invented English should be bitten by a snake.

Black seeds spill like clusters of eyes, wet and crying.

No, Mr. Johnston doesn't have a horse, nor has he ever ridden one. What kind of a cowboy is he?

Mostly, I wish I were still smart.

We glide and I feel as if I'm floating.

Our lives will twist and twist, intermingling the old and the new until it doesn't matter which is which.

She was promised to Father at five. They married at sixteen, earlier than expected. Everyone’s future changed upon learning the name H Chí Minh.

I step back, hating pity, having learned from Mother that the pity giver feels better, never the pity receiver.

People share when they know they have escaped hunger. Shouldn’t people share because there is hunger?

I wish our cowboy could be persuaded to buy a horse, that I could be invisible until I can talk back

I need the lessons. I’m hiding in class by staring at my shoes. I’m hiding during lunch in the bathroom, eating hard rolls saved from dinner. I’m hiding during outside time in the same bathroom. I’m hiding after school until Brother Khôi rides up to our secret corner. With Vu Lee I squat in weight on legs, back straight arms at my sides, fingers relaxed, eyes everywhere at once I’m practicing to be seen.

MiSSS SScott points to the numbers along the wall. I count up to twenty. The class claps on its own. I’m furious, unable to explain I already learned fractions and how to purify water. So this is what dumb feels like. I hate, hate, hate it.

I can't make my brothers go live elsehwere, but I can hide their sandals.

Some verbs switch all over just because. I am She is They are He was They were Would be simpler if English and live were logical.

I’m practicing to be seen.

Mostly I wish I were still smart.

We must consider the shame of abandoning our own country and begging toward the unknown where we will all begin again at the lowest level on the social scale.

We pretend the monsoon has come early. In the distance bombs explode like thunder, slashes lighten the sky, gunfire falls like rain. Distant yet within ears, within eyes. Not that far away after all.

...every language has annoyances and illogical rules, as well as sensible beauty.