On Being Taught the Phrase “Fuck You” by the White Boys

when i was a boy
young enough to lie
about words
being words only

when i knew fuck only,
& barely, as word for
heat & skin & empty palms
& not giving a _____ 

they pressed it
to my tongue
like a passport stamp
said say it like a citizen

-ship test. say it
to that day’s chosen
target: the white girl
who they might’ve thought

they loved. who was pretty
& ugly too, if it suited them,
& who four-squared then 
in all my mind’s quadrants

not due to desire or love
but an unmapped distance
& the possibility of its closing
if i simply lashed

my tongue. so i did. 
& repeatedly.
& gladly so. 
until i learned.

not to speak but to repeat after.
not to love her but to love the idea
of fucking the white girl. not to 
language but to wield language

while being wielded also.
weeks later, i taught
the phrase to my mother
sharp end first

though what wounded her
was not the weapon itself
but the knowledge that it belonged 
to someone else’s tongue.

Eric Wang is a queer Chinese-Canadian student at the University of Toronto Scarborough. His work can be seen at Hart House Review and Hobart.