Women/我们 by Ariana Lee

I created a game to play in Chinese class: Finding 
the hidden symbols in each character. I could see 
the upside-down four in the character for five: 五. 
I saw the multiplied 木 in 森林. My jaw dropped 
when I noticed the 口 in 吃. I wasn’t piecing together 
a puzzle, but puzzling over how the pieces
formed and reformed. How it took too many 
strokes to form a word for stroke: 撇. 
How 撇 is like the American penny,
which costs more to make than it’s actually worth. 

Class after class, I learned 中文 
through repetition. But I don’t remember
ever learning about China in these classes. 
Instead, pinyin. Stroke order. Calligraphy. 
I don’t remember ever learning about America
in English class either. Instead, grammar. 
Dangling modifiers. Comma placement. Punctuation!

A stack of stationery was a pile of possibilities.
Mixing languages gave me new pieces to play. 

我们 = Wǒ men = Wo men = Women
我们 = Us 

Therefore, Women = Us 
We are women. We form 
and reform with the pieces. 

Theory: Bodies absorb
governments like languages—
the younger you are, the better 
your mind will accept them. 

I have trouble accepting. 

长 = 长 
长 = Cháng
长 = Zhǎng
Cháng ≠ Zhǎng 

But if you place 长 next to 弓 or 月, it takes on a different meaning. If you place a woman in China or in the United States, her body takes on a different meaning. Under the one-child policy, the Chinese government forced women to get abortions. After the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the American government forced women to give up abortions. 

No matter where she is, the government sees 

a woman’s body like stationery, like empty

space to write over. They write MINE,
but I have trouble seeing how any of it is mine. 

Theory: For a woman to live,
her body must create its own language.

In my game, I try 
to find a way 
out from inside 
of each word. 

I tweak the e to an a. Stationery to stationary. 
But Stationary = Stuck 
I can’t 

move. I can’t find a woman in freedom, 
not even a hint of 女 in 自由. 

I fail to find my body 

in bodies of text. I only see
the men in government and 
the invisible woman in liberty, despite
her body holding its statue. 
I miss the human in human right. 

Governments play my game differently. 
They insist on the baby in woman, leave 
the baby once in hospital, mistake
hospital for hospitality, but I know 
hostility when I see it. 

I write 我们. I write women. 
But no statutes will hold us. 

I write 我们. I write women. 
But the law strikes through our language. 

I write 我们. I write women. 
But my lines have already been crossed. 

                              Our lives have already been crossed out.