Replacement Maps
some old writing, from 2018, that still resonates and also... is it cringe?
I’m sitting in the cabin eating spicy black beans and listening to the rain. Suddenly, I felt the urge to sit down at my laptop and open up my grad school folder of writing. I read a couple shorties (“sexy haikus” and “Slow like Sunday evening” which I may post if the people so request), and then opened up one that had a curious name: “Replacement Maps.”
Surprised to find that it still resonates with themes I think about often: the tension between indigeneity//colonization and being mixed.
So here it is, courtesy of the 2018 annals.
—
Replacement Maps
move china to india
and russia to guam
that’s better
just a jigger of greece and tanzania
the whole thing makes more sense
scents of oolong mingle with cumin
curry of borsht
linguine of goat
baracha becomes more hora
the salsa gets a little sweeter
*
this world is churning through
our global blood
noble mud
go fuck yourself—
by which i mean your distant cousin:
he’s right there across the border
in the country you cannot enter
a wall sprung up in his absence
like an angry welt
*
earth turns
move china
split india
pass finland, sink italy,
turn left at fiji, mexico, mauritania
splice montenegro, climb scopus, drown rome
*
go greet a creole-croat
ford a panamanian moat
burn down a russian’s home
this world is too complex to know
what is it, anyway, to call a place
your own?