Prayer for the Kababayan

by Yvanna Vien Tica

First published in decomp journal in October 2021. Click the arrow (>) to learn more about this piece

Voice held

inside like a panic.

I could never erase

myself from the narrative. Just people

after people falling & misguided

under the weight of the mountain air. We live

surrounded by them. My grandfather once told me

the mountains used to belong to the communists, another inflammatory

mouth to seduce America from its

imperialist suburbs. I wish I could lie

& say I understand. To this day, our parents

are still afraid of the bodies everyone knows

stay hidden in the provinces

for a reason. I once heard my mother

comfort another crying for her son:

Panginoon, he was a good man. Panginoon, he was only

young & trying unlike the rest of us.

He died officially of a stray gunshot from

someone’s drunk party. No one mentioned

the death threat he received a week ago when he stopped

being afraid of it all. Panginoon, he was only trying

to help this people. Just people after people disappearing

& walking like sunken clouds

grazing the forests for warmth. We live surrounded

by the stubborn hinges of jaws likening

into white masters. Stimulus generalization. How

the body of our language accommodated the Spaniards.

How I used to be proud of claiming the only country in Asia

accustomed to English like a second religion. I could

never bring back those boys who died running from point-blank,

too aware of the indignity. Too aware of their white gods.

Voices held inside like a prayer. Panginoon, we are only trying

to live. Panginoon, we are only trying to relieve ourselves

of our shadows who also resent their darkness. There aren’t enough

words in Tagalog to explain the wish to be

white. My grandfather doesn’t remember a day

when the mountains belonged to anyone but

the people. Another inflammatory debt to be washed

and hung to dry. I wish I could lie & say

there are enough words in Tagalog to apologize

to the mountains, their faces betraying

the forced silence like a cry sounding so much

like our mothers. Another mouth weeping. Voice

held inside for all their people refusing to remember.

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Yvanna Vien Tica is a Filipina writer who grew up in Manila and a Chicagoland suburb. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Poet Lore, Hobart, and Shenandoah, among others. A high school senior, she is the 2021 Hippocrates Young Poet and the 2021 1455 Teen Poetry Contest Winner. She edits for Polyphony Lit, reads for Muzzle Magazine, and tweets @yvannavien. In her spare time, she can be found enjoying nature and thanking God for another day.

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