Atlanta

I do not want to think about the six women dead in the massage parlors.
Who touched them? Whom did they touch? Did they close their eyes or keep them open? Did
they like it— the touching— despise it, or merely see it as synonymous to mundane survival?

I do not want to think about the six women dead in the massage parlors.
I see my mother lying face-up on the parlor floor. Leaking her one life onto the linoleum. Glass
shattered around her deflated body. I see my brother, heaving, his face hidden in her shirt. No
breath, no noise, just darkness swelling, swallowing.

I do not want to think about the six women dead in the massage parlors.
How did they call their children to the dinner table at the closing of every day? Cutie pie,
sweetie, love? Érzi, ttal, adeul? In my dreams tonight, my mother calls me to dinner, but I never
reach her no matter how far I walk towards her voice.

I do not want to think about the six women dead in the massage parlors.
Nothing makes sense. “Hypersexualization,” “Eliminate,” “Asian.” Why does nothing make
sense? The words flash resolutely on searing screens. The words displace all air with piles of
pixels, confused sound waves. What is living in the face of “violence,” “gender,” “race”? What
is the point of language, with all its fucking artificiality?

I do not want to think about the six women dead in the massage parlors.
I gasp awake shivering, his bare chest damp against my cheek. He rolls towards me with his
typical depthless tenderness. My love, you are my love, where else can I find such safety? How
far you see beneath my yellow skin. How far do you see beneath my yellow skin? His ocean eyes
stare straight through me, and I dissolve into his arms, formless.

I do not want to think about the six women dead in the massage parlors.
Sisters, mothers, listen— a part of me died with you that day. I say this with eyes closed. Tell me,
what does peace look like to you? What would you have done if given exactly that kind of
peace? Tell me what to do with this one precious life, unwilding swiftly beneath our fingertips.

By Caroline Aung