I am crazy to love you.
Though I say it’s over, I cannot help but wonder
if I will ever find someone else
to have spiritual conversations with
while we make love and laugh.
Is it that simple?
They say don’t believe in the movies.
American romance is overrated and misleading.
Chick flicks makes me want to throw up.
Majority of them are privileged middle class white women
who end up with the most popular jock in high school
or some successful business man off of a fancy billboard.
Their dinners are at nice restaurants
wine glasses, italian pastas, pretty dresses
Cliche walks to the apartment door
a lucky kiss, and sometimes even more.
Fluffy bedsheets, rose petals, teddy bears
Camera angles of lights bouncing off naked bodies.
Before PG-13 and R movies,
Disney movies growing up were all the pretty princesses
Damsels in Distress, submissive and vulnerable women
Carried away by their Prince Charmings
To magically live happily ever after.
When I speak of my love life,
I am convinced with the help of others that I can do better.
I don’t have to give up my comforts in life to find this so called ‘Love’.
I can do better than fried noodles and pho everyday
than having to walk or hitch hike to where I need to be
than having to sleep on the floor with a single mattress
battling cockroaches and mosquitoes
no kitchen to cook, no flushing toilet or hot water
how my shower is a bucket and cold water
with no light no no no pretty or convenient things.
WAKE UP, American dream.
i NEVER watch chick flicks
other than the time I kept company with my new friend
Oppressed Khmer-X-American Woman
While her baby’s father had been gone for over a month
fucking other women in the city of Phnom Penh.
And though she lived in a Western neighborhood
in a gated community with a 4 story house
3 house maids to tend to her needs,
A Lexus to drive, air conditioner, a hot shower,
Big flat screen TV, zero mosquitoes and cockroaches,
Fluffy bedsheets elevated on a thick mattress,
she slept alone every night,
with only her son to keep her company.
I remember us laying together
as I told you stories that I thought didn’t matter
about my secrets, my dreams, my diary.
You did not try to make love to me. You only listened.
You responded, we laughed.
In those moments, i forgot where I was at.
My privileges melted away and I felt like a child.
Not immature – only at peace. My best friend.
You were far from my knight in shining armor.
I was the princess who fell in love with the peasant.
I refused to be the damsel in distress
because those Disney characters annoyed me anyways.
Now I am back in America
to the comforts of life most immigrants dream of escaping to.
I want to convince myself that love can be found elsewhere,
that Passion fades. That I can remake those chick flicks
to include similar story lines, but replace the characters
with empowered womyn of color who become vulnerable
after discovering comrades- good for love making,
Balancing revolution with romance
without limiting ourselves to the boundaries of Los Angeles.
But of course, Hollywood doesn’t make money off of these tales.
People of color, revolutions, and romance.
This reality will not be found in a movie screen.
Hot and sweaty sex scenes look prettier
in expensive hotel rooms and fancy lofts.
Nobody wants to hear about the harsh realities of the world
of how Capitalism affects our brothers and sisters in the motherland
How genocide has flipped a country from Second World down to Third.
How there are people willing to sacrifice everything
From fuzzy feelings in American romance flicks
to backyard bbqs with family and friends
All for the greater Love for their people across oceans.
I think of the many other American men
who fly to Cambodia or Thailand for different reasons than me,
or even the local men,
who walk to the dark alleys for the same reason as the American men-
abandoning their wives for alcohol and fast pussy at a cheap price
while sisters with open legs hope one day that this sacrifice of their body
will land them in a nice Western home, to Security, Freedom..
and how you wait. Patiently for me.
No temptation. No touch.
Wait as you watch these men come and go.
And from thousands of miles away,
We did not need to make love
to feel love.
I yell at you for not being able to afford much for me
But the more I think about this, the more I am torn between
a truth and a lie of having something Priceless or Worth Nothing.
Commitment cannot be bought, and
Happy endings do not happen in less than 2 hours.
I am waking up, America. And I hope to wake up
where artificial screens with rotating colors do not block me from seeing Light.
Jumakation 