Recently, The Rebirth Project has decided to partner up with Amherst Regional High School to give their students a safe space to publish their work. Our publication holds the projection of voices as one of our missions. We are happy to start a new ballad series: “The Voices of ARHS.”
Anesthesia
By Rebekah Hong
In elementary school,
I was introduced to a world of blissful ignorance.
My white peers pulled their eyes back to mock mine,
and parodied my mother tongue,
each syllable more insulting than the last.
Sometimes it would hurt so much
I would laugh and holler with them
each bellow, perhaps a step closer to blissful ignorance;
anesthesia that soothes the wound that they perpetually open.
But even after I became one with my white peers
They shot me yelling “China Virus!”
I feel my knees loosen and slam into the cement,
sending a jerk up my spine.
As the dissonance of your cackle intrudes my ears,
the laughter that once occupied my world of oblivion
haunts me;
Your jarring voice consumes my mind
and now I can’t tell if you or Trump is yelling “China Virus” in my ear.
Syllables blend together until all I hear is a uniform buzz
— perhaps preserving my ears from your attack
one last time before I go down.
I hear the shattering of my skull as my head
slams into the ground.
I need anesthesia I can’t laugh it hurts
I can’t
numb my
wou-
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