little yellow cat’s train of thought

& everything is a shade of gray, stuck in the interim between the arrows pointing right, pointing wrong.

Wouldn’t it be a relief to say that the solution is just this one step? I hate it here, stuck in this quicksand of millions of gray arms, pulling me into the slog, keeping me from moving forward. I think I’m a gray arm, too. So convinced that I’m right until the slightest breeze pushes me back into the cyclone of self-doubt & wrongness. 

We talk about colors like the great distinctions they’ve become: impossible to ignore, the root of all barriers. Some of us push for a yellow and black yin-yang, wishing for unity between minorities pushed so far apart as to be polar opposites, forgetting that these opposites have grown fangs for the Other. 

It is an injustice to be the victim. Maybe it makes us forget that we, too, can be perpetrators. The wounded tiger, the wounded panther. They heal with vengeance in their hearts.

I watch the mangled tiger from afar, see it in the newspaper headlines decrying another one struck in the face, spat on, left behind. Ashamed of how little I feel, or am unable to feel. Like a fraud, I stand by on the sidelines, watching. 

People around me whisper of their fear & their pain & their anger. But the tiger is old. The only old ones I know are halfway across the world, and I can barely speak their language. Or maybe this is just another excuse. 

Some part of me still believes that our tiger should stay mute. Like we have for centuries. Each angry outburst we hold in is a maturity & a good deed that brings us closer to enlightenment. Take the slap & don’t cry & don’t swear, because you don’t deserve the help. 

Haven’t you seen the stray kittens on the sidewalk? Mewling for help? Haven’t you turned a blind eye, or joined the other spectators, dangling little treats of acceptance only at the cost of their dignity? They always turn out ok. (You’ve been that kitten.) And now the grown tiger is asking for help, beaten and mangled, but all my life I’ve thought this is nothing, compared to what they’ve been through. 

Finally, I have an issue where my voice feels valuable. Finally, a topic where I might speak clearly on childhood & my parents’ lives & everything I’ve read. I feel relieved. 

But when the words find their way to me, they’re rough & raspy & raw. Ugly. With one word, the towering gray waves of uncertainty begin to roll, the familiar feeling of judgment & wrongness continues. Weary limbs limp back to rest, resignedly continuing my watch. 

With wide eyes I watch the people around me shape their ideas and share them. In awe of how courageous they are with their ideas & their conviction & the way they wield their words. 

So I will watch & I will learn & I will navigate this big gray world.

by JOCELYN HSIEH