I TRO TO FEEL HIS ANGER

I try to feel his anger

For 17 years, I never understood it

Now imagine death is running to you

any second could be your last second

Death will pinch your neck, but you still have a lot to say

All the unspoken and undone will sink into endless silence

Now you really wish to finish all you want to finish

you wish to have control over everything

you wish to have no regrets

He was not a good child

so he wished me to be a good child

a child who gets high scores at school

who knows more than others of her age

He wished the time he would lose can be added to my life

So he taught me addition and subtraction at 4

multiplication and division at 5

decimals, fractions, and integrated calculations at 6

He tried to teach me equations but I couldn't understand

He couldn't bear me to make mistakes

to do the questions slowly

or to think of playing instead of studying

I remember one night, he got furious at me for wanting to watch TV when I should be solving math questions

He unplugged the TV in both the living room and my grandparent's bedroom

No entertainment at all that night-not even the boring news

Another time he smashed his glass ashtray on the floor

A scary shattering sound immediately followed by my cry

They cleaned up the glass fragments and got a new one for cigarettes

Years after he passed away, I had a discovery at my childhood home:

The wooden floors embossed the ashtray for 5 millimeters deep

Its shape looks like a waning crescent