by Sydney Ling
After and with a line adapted from Franny Choi’s “The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On”
Before the revolution, there was the revolution of shirts:
100% cotton shirts, $30 made from the hands of children
9,000 miles away shirts, Vulva La Resistance slash This is what a Feminist looks like
slash [Fe]Male I am Iron Man shirts. Before the revolution, there was the revolution
of the burning factory. There was the revolution of the seamstress ensnared
in yellow roses. There was the revolution of the words, and the wordless— of my mother unfurling her fists when her mother named her after War. Before the revolution,
there was the revolution of fists. There was the revolution of teeth brushed with luminous paint, and the revolution of the bluebirds. Before which was the revolution of the bluebirds
and milk mixed with frozen eggs. Before which was the revolution of bluebirds and jail cells, caged against the padlocked door. Before the revolution, the revolution of bicycles.
The revolution of bloomers. Pink pussyhat revolution. Fuck-the-patriarchy over salad revolution. Revolution leaks from a broken coat hanger. There was the revolution of the pill
and the crumpled snow-white bonnet; the revolution of the pill and the pig’s blood and the pearls or the diamonds; there was the grief carried and the nights missed; the jaw dropping away
from skull; the barren madonna staked at the pyre. My mother was born from a revolution,
I was delivered a week late and began— the revolution began when the serpent wrapped itself scarlet around lily-white Eve, rupturing her ribs. It began when cycles pulled curves. It began when a cobra choked Cleopatra, blood pooled behind the flesh of figs. By the time
the revolution began, the world had already ended. The world was beaten, bled out, bruised,
and begging. It calluses and blisters. The world used to giggle and sashay, but it only cries
and vomits now. The world trusted and now untrusts. It martyrs itself. It swallows secrets,
before it screams, severing from shame. When she asked me where I was when the revolution began, I bit my tongue raw from answering— I was ripped from the belly of a revolution,
and I can never cleanse the blood from my hands.
Sydney Ling is the founding Editor in Chief of Rice & Spice Magazine, a magazine and creative collective by Asian American youth. She was named a 2022 California Arts Scholar in Creative Writing. Her work has been recognized by the National Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, and is forthcoming in Gigantic Sequins. Find her on Instagram @sydneyliing.
Emerge Literary Journal 