It hurts less when I cast us in history
1898
You are America; She: Paris;
All of my white boyfriends: Spain.
The difference, you said, Was liberty,
Was protection, Was solidarity,
A common enemy. A common bed.
Your words high-minded as some forty-five stars.
But this would not be liberation.
I knew this in my blood
Before you spilled it
When the whispers in my chest tightened round my heart
While you set eyes on Paris.
Paris who said she’d help me
But reached for you as I prayed.
You made your Treaty in Paris
Like Spain
Cut me deep till I bled.
1942
We line up behind our bloodlines.
This war the site of a guilt blood makes you bear.
Red sits in your veins bright as love or anger—
Clear like twin “no”s on a questionnaire.
The weight of your plasma carries cries of Comfort Women
Named by the force of Japan’s Imperial Army.
She and I: The Philippines and Korea.
Two lands you tried to occupy at once.
Two girls to give you comfort.
Cherisse Yanit Nadal is the current Editor-in-Chief at The East Jasmine Review. She is a recipient of PAWA, Inc.’s Manuel G. Flores Prize in Writing, is a 2013 VONA Fellow, and attended the UCR Palm Desert Low-Residency MFA program. Her work has been published in Oatmeal Magazine and has been a featured reader at Dirty Laundry Lit, Sunday Jump, and Tuesday Night Cafe. You can follow her on Twitter & Instagram @cherisseyanit.