I.

After sixteen years, the Crayola on the walls are still there,
faded colours rubbing off to reveal the layer before.

The closet is a pool of mothballs,
their stench trapped in the wooden crevices.

My father's computer is now grey
from collecting dust from my childhood.

Pages of Charlie Brown Cyclopedia are still torn
like my family and of my father’s.

A soft creak from the faucet, worn down
from his sister’s screams against his wife and children.


II.

Flourescent lights shadow over signatures
waiting to be exchanged.

My father’s other sister barricades herself here,
shoots us looks that wish of misfortune and destitution.

Her lawyer speaks in mantras:
you don't get anything automatically just because you're his daughter.

Car engines and conversations outside remind me
that I’m present, that blood is thicker than legalese.

They sell off everything for a price I can't afford,
but I can always wait for their decay.

 

Karla Comanda is a Vancouver-based poet and translator. She is currently pursuing an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia. Her work has recently been published in Grain Magazine and SAD Mag. Originally from the Philippines, she is currently the fiction editor for Ricepaper Magazine.