4 Poems
Jodi Lin
Jodi Lin is a Queer/Trans Asian Pacific Islander poet and filmmaker based in Mahattan. They find focus in creating work that engages individuals who have ever sought a connection with something spiritual. Their poetry can be experienced in a video diary called “Leaving Beauty” on their YouTube channel of the same name, The Poetry Project “Footnotes” publication, and upcoming in Amethyst Review. 2021 Fellow at Brooklyn Poets. Their short film “Borte, Queen of Tibet,” a fearlessly honest autobiography about their recovery from Schizo Affective Disorder, was nominated for the festival prize at the Soho International Film Festival and received numerous other screenings. A graduate of the ART Institute at Harvard and Sarah Lawrence College.
IG @hellojodiii
Twitter @jodilin16
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OOZE or Are You Coming Through
my unmentionable shame
this unspeakable desire for you
trapped in this girl body
my girl body
keeps me
tethered to inaction
my girl body
keeps me tethered
to the unmentionable shame I feel when I think of you I us
I’m sick today
I’ve caught colonialism again
oozing cishet colonialism
caught it waiting for revolution
with my boy panties down
colonialism at my ankles
that vile contagion
that gaslights these bloodstains
and damns me
from that sweet revolution
that is love
I’ll call you when I’m free
I’ll call you when I’m free
I’ll call you when I’m free
*This poem references Host by Jericho Brown.
Prehistoric Dreamers
pebbles collide underwater near the pescadores islands.
earth rumbles below from centuries and lifetimes ago.
ringing ears ringing night into day into night
until that terrible hum hum hum relents;
giving way to the indomitable whoosh
of my ocean heart my ocean mind my ocean ears.
currents break and flash in the moonlight.
each pull of the tide reflects the illusion.
............
i live continents away from this filthy sea
but my ocean ears can hear it.
i live and think trash because trash becomes me.
i live and think trash because trash has become me.
trash cans trucks bins receptacles, a receptacle of waste refuse garbage rubbish;
a receptacle of shit piss scum vermin dregs.
a landfill, a land filling, but unlike a filling for a tooth
there was no pain here, no exposed nerve,
no corrosion to be cleared, no rotting bone,
no crevice, nothing missing, no gap, no hole.
and then there was you. because there wasn’t enough, right?
to go around, right? your trash wasn’t good enough so you had to have mine, right?
my waste, my refuse, my rubbish, my good for nothings,
my riffraff, my unmentionable untouchables, my beautiful sacred trash.
............
these sacred islands my mine mine not yours, i say
as you gaslight my mine mind. formosa. the pescadores islands.
the seediq tribal warriors. all of us prehistoric dreamers
coming down at you from mossy jungle mountains
to trash you resist you assault you with the war that you made.
my island. my grandfather’s island, our island of prehistory
now a landfill for your trash.
............
Blood Offering
a rainbow of Seediq Warriors
lead me to the sacred hunting ground
of my ancestors. a journey up
a winding mountain path of slippery rock
nearly overtakes me as i climb;
the rainbow guides me through.
its colors flicker to my eyes
the warmth, a closeness of color
as the sun passes through the mist
collecting light. devotion is my
destiny.
i reach a clearing of sacred earth
on which to prosper and thrive.
my heart, my breath, a blood offering
a promise i will never again forget.
to the bridge, the ancestors tell me
in a voice i know is my own.
to the bridge i say as the love of the
warriors leads me to the cosmos.
When Destiny is Enough
How do I get from Bellevue to our Holy Palace in this life?
At my hospital bed, nurses force pills of malice in this life.
A mysterious force kept me from jumping on that day.
I wonder if the hospital were a gateway to sanity in this life.
Being blinded by the fog of rebirth is a virtue the wise ones say.
Hope, my demise! I wake from the fog first and can’t get to you in this life.
The Holy Queen, on my jagged path to sovereignty.
My destiny far from me, revealed solely through hardship in this life.
From our past lives you call to me.
The echo falls tenderly to my ears. Please find me in this life.
Wealth and fame not enough to erase the sadness from your soul.
In goddess name I promise we’ll be together in this life.
Stop your crying, baby, it’ll be alright. They tell me that the end is near.
This is my fear, as I scroll through photos of you in this life.
Your beauty is the gold that I seek.
I’m weakened for I’m old when we meet in this life.
My body broken by time.
Your mind broken by wine in this life.
Together we lead, this premonition I believe.
Suffering, the ammunition I need in this life.
Come close to me I pray.
These words I say, love me like I already love you in this life.
It will be alright. The end is near.
Forever and tonight, let our fate take flight in this life.
To the final show, wearing my best clothes. Oh Jodi!
You remember, you forget, but you know! You are Queen in a past life.
* This poem references Sign of the Times by Harry Styles
