They gave me a name wrapped in silk,
wrote prayers in a tongue I barely spoke,
burned incense I did not understand,
and told me to bow to the ghosts of men
who died before I was born.
I wore the weight of a dragon's shadow
while dreaming in a language not mine—
and my blood is pure.

I tore the name from my mouth,
spat out the bitter tea of exile,
and painted my voice in asphalt and neon.
I learned to laugh like the boys on TV,
built my house from borrowed slang and second chances,
and in that rebellion, I found my shape—
but my blood is pure.

Years passed like monsoons through empty fields.
I carved a flag from my father's grief and a son’s joy,
sang lullabies that never belonged to any country.
Yet at night, I still reached for
the ghost of a homeland I never truly held.
A question echoed in the marrow of my bones—
If my blood were pure.

Now I hold both truths like rivers in my palm
my father’s war, a son’s freedom,
the silence of old temples, the hum of city trains.
I am the prayer and the protest,
the lotus and the concrete.
And in this ache, I stand whole—
so my blood is pure.