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Equal Parts

from Avatar by Alva Dean

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lyrics

She asked me what my blood is like

I told her my mother was born in a city
swallowed by the Pacific
and drowning in its smog
the people hurt to mouth breathe

I told her my father is a pale conquering coast,
hunting thick pitch beneath the mantle of the earth
tapping the surface with ear to the ground
following the quick reply with hurried gnashing

I told her I was carefully constructed in equal parts

I stole the height of my white fathers before me, became lithe, sinewy
after patient gestation and tempered time spent
defying gravity, digging through open waters,
bottomless pools where my lungs learned to stay full

I adorned the pigment of my yellow mothers before me, became tawny, fashioned a crown of ink
sat bowlegged beneath Boddhi tree to be
silent and count the passerby
scrawling their rambling forms across the canvas that lines the inside of my mind

She said I had the right amount of Asian in me
I grabbed the corners of my eyes and pulled them back
towards her and everything
I have gone
passed and noted.

credits

from Avatar, released June 14, 2014

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Alva Dean image

Alva Dean Lawrence, Kansas

Writing down dreams in Lawrence, Kansas

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