There are names they never let bloom: not in maps, not in marrow—
cartographies erased by teeth, tongues chewed into hollow.
My grandfather spat fire in a dialect they jailed. He taught me
to write freedom on banana leaves, smuggle truth through hollow
bamboo flutes. We played them loud, even when soldiers came.
Each note a prayer disguised as lullaby, breath filling the hollow
coffin of our borrowed time. My mother stitched rice sacks
into flags, said dignity lives even in homes with hollow
floors. We washed our hands in rivers they damned, still drank.
We planted futures in stolen soil, let wild dreams swell hollow
abdomens of girls they said should kneel. My sister bled protest
in lipstick and loud songs. They called her soft, called her hollow.
Once, we built a school with no roof—just sky. Lessons rose
with the sun, shadows teaching us to grow inside the hollow.
I don’t want empire's gold. I want rain that listens. I want
a world not mined of mercy, where the poorest aren’t hollow.
You call us subversive. Maybe. But we’re the ones with gardens
in our throats. I carry fire, I kiss the hollow.
Artwork by Larissa Ribeiro