Toy Kingdom

Fri, 06/13/2014 - 17:14 -- AmyGuo

Another flight overhead of the Arctic 

Flying into smog-filled Beijing, the sky is a friend who has dyed her hair black

A friend who is a stranger, a friend who smokes.

Boarding the plane filled with those who have never been in the air

Who some consider to have never been anywhere at all 

Traveling into their lives, my own life, into a nameless city

A dusty child comes bounding to my crumbling house, speaking of a magnificent kingdom 

Rich with treasure.

Her clothes are worn and her hair is tangled.

She pulls me with her down an unpaved street filled with beggars.

She pulls me down an alley with stray hens and cats.

Into the magnificent kingdom 

Clawing through the mountains of bounty 

A tattered, stiff, blue teddy bear emerges in her small hands. 

Her eyes shine and her smile is bright. 

She pulls a box out of the hills of riches and lays it in front of me.

Setting her faded blue bear onto the cleanest corner of the cardboard

On top of the faded black Chinese characters that I cannot understand 

Moving the empty, stained silver cannisters from our feet

She sits on the pavement

Content with somebody else's bear and somebody else's box. 

A man, a royal guard, waters the tall, black gate with his golden water

She stands to leave and carries her loot under her thin arm

I see two small men approach us 

They too have visited the kingdom and speak of its wonder

We ride in their three-wheeled carriage with wooden sides and metal wheels 

Toward my crumbling home

And pick petals to drink their nectar

From the mayor's red garden. 

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