VISIBLE MagazineHeather Hauck | VISIBLE Magazine

Displacement

Heather Hauck — Mon, 05 Apr 2021 14:32:40 +0000

Don’t assume that I am
grateful to be here
Six Asian women shot
left for dead
Can you hear me?
Your violence is killing us.
I’m drowning in a bottomless pit of whiteness: Keep my head down, don’t be too emotional,
always be agreeable,
and don’t look too Asian-
assimilation

Are you surprised that I speak in perfect English?
The look on your face shows so much disdain
Chink, go back to your country
I want to scream, Fuck you. Do you think I like it here?
Exhausted from proving that I exist,
I swallow my pain

The moment I stepped off the plane
with my brown slanted eyes and
coarse black hair
I stuck out from a sea of blonde waves
and fleshy white faces
A mother once told me that I looked like a china doll
and I believed her

I imagine my birth country
where mountains give way to the sky
the blossoms of lilacs fall like snow
and gold leaves of ginkgo trees
line the streets below
At night crying babies soothed on backs
of black haired
ommas
singing our ancestors’ songs

Given away at birth
my homeland is a myth
Go home you say?
I have no home.
I turn and walk away.

Origins

Heather Hauck — Sun, 03 Jan 2021 19:34:10 +0000

Before I was born
the erasure of my origins
was imprinted in my genes
the survival of my maternal bloodline
lingers distant in the air like
the fragrant scent of cherry blossom
in full bloom
***
Before I understood my otherness
I stare at my reflection in the mirror
slanted brown eyes
thick wavy coarse hair- not straight
like the typical Asian
My olive skin
rich in melanin
No one has ever uttered
You look just like your mother
And I wonder if I’m Korean enough
***
Before I spoke my first word
I had no family tree
Last night, halmoni appeared in my dreams
soothing me on her back
the creases of my chubby legs poked out from her hips
her worn hands folding the garlic into the cabbage
the fermented smell of kimchi
inviting me in
And I belonged
***
Before I knew that love existed between
my birth mother and my abandonment
I tried to hold space for her
but somewhere inside
the fragments
of loss and reconciliation
I let her go
and for the first time
I grieved.

Gone to U.S.A.

Heather Hauck — Mon, 02 Dec 2019 19:18:45 +0000

It happened in the evening.
I am left on a sidewalk in Korea
Swaddled in the shame of my beginnings.
The smell of rotten eggs lingers heavy in the air like a lifetime of regrets.
A woman looks down at me and says, annyeong, you beautiful baby.
I make no sound.
She lifts me into her arms
And carries me towards grace.

It happened in the daytime.
Exported like a shiny new cell phone
I arrive a daughter in a new country
The model adoptee-grateful and lucky
The other shadowed among your whiteness.
A woman cradles me in her arms and whispers, welcome home.

It happened slowly over time
The grief unearthing from somewhere deep like worms crawling out from the dirt.
I wonder what my birth mother said to me as she held me for the last time.
Did she say I love you, I'm sorry…
Maybe she doesn't remember
But the body never forgets.

I am here.
Born into this world
Under the August moonlight
Reclaiming my voice
Broken and whole
Loved
Abandoned
And found.