Walking Manifesto #4- I Will not Be in Someone else’ Book/Happy Emancipation Day!, Pacyinz Lyfoung, 2016, first draft (Dedicated to Bruce Beneke,  Mary Nguyen, Cyndi Cook, Penny Snipper, Jay Wilkinson, Friendly Vang Johnson, Sharon Ramirez, Kazim Ali, Nancy Wong)

AWUM, APAWLI, NAPAWF, HWAT

Asia Women United of Minnesota, Asian Pacific American Women’s Leadership Network, National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, Hmong Women’s Action Team

In the end, it all spells out to

WOMAN

It wasn’t for the glory, the money, the step to my next job, the headline to the next article about me, my place in the book of she-roes,

I loved books, I loved them ever since I could read, I loved them first, begging my poor parents for the only thing I truly wanted, books

At the fork of real life, at heart, I was still a baby with my first love, words: I could follow either of my two languages, my first to effortlessly write brilliant articles gathering the dust of scholarly praise on university shelves, or my second to face the terror of what did not flow so easily in my mind and tongue but it could shield the meek and right the wrongs

My first job, I came from a refugee community, keeping a roof over people’s head, keeping a home into people’s hearts, kissing the hope in homeless people’s eyes- it was a true calling

My Asian sister found me there and said, come and help build this dream house for the women and children who have no place to go; for nine hundred and two and a half days, it was breathtakingly pure and beautiful; then the black sheep stumbled on our front steps, she had been wounded in so many ways, in the end, she slaughtered her own lambs; I’ll not lie, it broke me, not when I was the only one who did not flinch from telling the truth of our collective responsibility, but when I saw the heart of my sisterhood holding up higher the dream of that house than the soul of one of our own

My younger sister said, how dare you, turn your back from our sisterhood, but I was done with meetings- we did not speak for four years

Yesterday, I knew he was my brother when he said, I was an activist, but I could not breathe anymore, I am a yogi-poet now

Yesterday, my older sister was so proud we could stand together for the platinum anniversary of another house, but I don’t think I would have been there, a house is nice, but in the end, I did not walk for houses, I walked for WOMAN

I love books, I will not be in someone else’s book, I will be my own words in my own book