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Ting Lin

A Purpose for Those Without

​My mother carved out her ovaries
the same August I lost my virginity to
a storm of a girl, then told me
I should bear a child by thirty.
 
In this family, our womanhood poisons us.
Bitter are these pearls we inherited. So i understood:
loss, so I understood barren.
 
My mother stares at period products on
supermarket shelves. Something to stop the blood.
I am seventeen but the years pass
and they keep passing. Mama: my longing is the wrong kind.
 
I watch her bend over the sink,
golden light streaming through the window
illuminating her spine.
Ting, she named me— means listen,
to our rivers, our forests, our typhoons.
She tells me to pray harder.
 
I‘m leaving home as she teaches me our language.
Lok yu daai, seui jam gaai. Heavy rain, drowning street.
I can sing it but I cannot speak plainly, the intonation
too brittle for my crooked tongue.
 
At Nanhua temple she burns her thin red incense year after year,
and I love every child I see through the smoke,
passing her by.

Biography

Picture
​Ting Lin (she/her) grew up in Guangzhou and Toronto. Her poems explore themes of queerness, femininity, and migration. She is currently an undergraduate student at Stanford University studying Anthropology. You can find her on Twitter @imtootiredfor where she posts about her dog too much.
 
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ISSN 2639-426X
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  • Home
  • About
    • Contributors List
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  • Press
  • Issues
    • Issue 49
    • Issue 48
    • Issue 47
    • Issue 46
    • Issue 45
    • Issue 44
    • Issue 43
    • Issue 42
    • Issue 41
    • Issue 40
    • Issue 39
    • Issue 38
    • Issue 37
    • Issue 36
    • Issue 35
    • Issue 34
    • Issue 33
    • Issue 32
    • Issue 31
    • Issue 30
    • Issue 29
    • Issue 28
    • Issue 27
    • Issue 26
    • Issue 25
    • Issue 24
    • Issue 23
    • Issue 22
    • Issue 21
    • Issue 20
    • Issue 19
    • Issue 18
    • Serenity
    • Issue 17
    • The Audio Room
    • Issue 16
    • Issue 15
    • Issue 14
    • Play It Again
    • Issue 13
    • Issue 12
    • Issue 11
    • Issue 10
    • Issue 9
    • Issue 8
    • Issue 7
    • Issue 6
    • Hand to Mouth
    • Issue 5
    • Issue 4
    • Issue 3
    • Issue 2
    • Issue 1
  • Submissions