Two poems

Luoyang Chen

Self-colonialism

Apply
me like you apply theory

Trample
me like you trample other ways of being

Annul
me like you annul laws

Modify
me like you modify language

Commodify
me like you commodify culture

Fuck
me like you fuck up with land, water, air

Unite
me like you unite nations

Purchase
me like you purchase conscience

Imprison
me like you imprison citizens

Free
me like you free people

Colonise
me like you colonise your own selves

— —

Conversation with Gods

When I think of schizophrene, I think of my nanna. I think of Bhanu. Then I think of me

When did it all start,
The conversation with gods?

To submit one’s body,
The conversation is a form of
Punishment to the body.

It exhausts oneself through
An ongoing conversation
About a balance of felicity –

A dance

Between

Suffering and prosperity.

Thus the body is a platform
To perform a ceremony
That requires the suffering of one’s body
For the prosperity of their family.

Her dialogues with gods have consumed my nanna’s body for more than two decades. The consumption of her body continues. She is forever trapped in her own house. Sometimes on plastic or wooden chair. Most of the time on her bed. She is becoming more of her body that is merging with her bed. She is becoming a bed.

Bhanu is a friend of mine who lay down naked on the ground. Who doesn’t know my name or where I come from. She wrote a book titled ‘Schizophrene’ in 2011, which I thought I myself wrote. At the time I was 13. What did I know? I enjoyed standing still in the rain, especially during the typhoon season, when the wind and the rain hit and socked into my body – then I became a wet platform. AND

HERE

I AM

TALKING TO YOU:

THIS IS A CONVERSATION WITH GODS.