Harrison Ines
Like stepping on Legos
The moments stack like a Lego mountain,
“Why weren’t you there to protect your sister?” my mom greeted me.
“This is your fault,” she announced.
At once, I learned I was knighted with the responsibility to protect her.
At once, I failed.
At once, I asked what happened.
At once, I wondered why it wasn’t my uncle's responsibility to protect her from himself?
At once, I wanted to ask mom why her brother did this.
At once,
At once, I needed my mother to pull every word out of my mouth.
At once,
At once, I said I'm sorry.
At once, my mom scolded my sister for trying to scrape her eyes.
At once, my sister saw the future I was shown to inherit.
At once, my sister saw my potential, but by the way she looked at me I didn’t feel like a future astronaut or doctor.
At once, I've never seen her look so ugly when she cried. 13-year-olds are scared of looking ugly when they cry. Trust me. I know I’m 11 but I’ve seen it with my own eyes.
At once, I remembered that mom said, “When you apologize, you always make sure that you do everything you can to make sure it never happens again.”
At once, I wanted to re-tell my mom that she was the one that taught me, “I can only apologize if I’m actually going to make sure that never happens again.”
At once, I realized it wasn’t a good time to ask how.
At once,
My sister looked at me and we remembered we had a non-verbal language built through board games, charades, animal sounds, two-player Rich Man, Poor Man, and every which way to try and cheat/ feign cheating/ try to uncover cheating. We remembered funny insults and practiced re-enactments of cartoon character expressions and skits. Tucked below my mother’s shoulder, her face clenched questioning me, “Where were you? I needed you last night” in the language of silliness and blame only sibling children know how to speak.
A haiku about laughing about pain must laugh eventually
8 years of therapy
Sometimes all I get
Is a little haiku
In Reverse
The question of when twisted
into how wilted into why.
Predators genuflect into prayer.
Biology dismantled his excuses.
Daughters sewed fathers into sons
& we danced, turning off the music.
The hinging jalousies of
your bedroom extended open
while the hungry breathing
outside goes home.
You spool your fists like a hurricane
winding into a butterfly’s wings.
Nails puzzle blood & ceiling fan back
& forth until your body is remembered.
Your niece floats her mother
from inside the womb. On the last story
of your apartment building, you
watch the moon return
to you. The dream clusters
& the night falls upwards
opening your eyes. Ash burns back into
kindling. My uncle retreats
& his eyes unfocus. His secret rewinded
into choices. You lift yourself off the
ground, while learning what is possible.
Harrison Ines is a second generation Filipino, born and raised in Kalihi, Oʻahu. At age 16 he began writing and performing poetry with Pacific Tongues, a non-profit that cultivates youth literacy and civic engagement through writing and performance of spoken word poetry. After competing nationally for three years with the organization he became a facilitator. The same year Harrison began writing poetry, he also began cooking professionally. Now with a career in the restaurant business he strives to do what great poets do with their words with cooking.
Photo by Bronwyn Almy