Your Prison with Fire | C. J. Anderson-Wu

I Am in Your Prison

Provided with three meals a day
at fixed time, and
twenty minutes outdoor in the morning
half an hour in the afternoon

Washing, drying and ironing
clothes, linens and towels used by
strangers who thought
the service was from professionals

After dinner of tasteless food
before the light is put out at nine sharp
we have two or three hours to ourselves

But we are too young and too hyperactive
to meditate in peace
Books available are quite boring for our bloody taste
The fake version of Streams in the Desert is too late to save us^[1]
from our faltering in tender age
And Catcher in the Rye that is close to our purposeless mindscape
is banned

We are encouraged to write letters 
to our parents who are disappointed by our misconducts
or to our siblings to apologize for the troubles we brought to them
We are advised to confess our regret and take oath
that we are new persons after being corrected

So I write and write
Unstopped
even after the light is out

Not to admit my fault 
but to maintain my mind from physical confinement
to grab the last freedom I am still left with
to break away the contamination 
of your political propaganda
and to engage you

Dear censorship officer
By reading tons of my writing daily
my creative and resistant thoughts
I am the one redeeming you with imaginative ideas
 
You are in my prison

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^[1]Taiwan’s long time ruler Chiang Kai-Shek had edited the Chinese version of Streams in the Desert, which became a completely different publication from the original and was recommended to the public as disciplinary material.

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You Wrote Your Last Will With Fire
          —Taiwan, Hong Kong, China

Last Will

When the police broke into the office of your news outlet
you threw yourself into flames
It was your last will, your only freedom
of expression, manifested
after decades of
being muffled

Today you are remembered
by leaving us a society 
with all kinds of
loud voices
and necessary confrontations with the government
without fear

Legacy

We are warned, again, what could come next
when publishing houses, bookstores, buildings of news media
are raided by law enforcement

We are reminded, again, what we could loss, when 
publishers, book sellers and journalists
are either under the trials of
National Security violation, or 
in prolonged exile

Lies

All of our protests are presented 
on a blank A4 paper
with messages from
the silenced, the deceived, the wronged, the incarcerated
the misled, the distorted, the expelled
the erased, the oppressed, the executed

A blank A4 paper is our
rejection of national propaganda
our unspoken uprising

A blank A4 paper could be 
as pure as the first winter snow
as sharp as a fighting knife
as quiet as a falling leaf

A slow yet deep revolution

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Author’s notes

*In 1989, after decades of Martial Law rule, Cheng Nan-Jung, founder of the Freedom Era Weekly in Taiwan, set himself on fire when police were arresting him in his office. In 1992, Taiwan’s censorship of publications was finally lifted.

*After the National Security Law was imposed on Hong Kong in 2020, all the independent news outlets were shut down, and many of their reporters were expelled while others still remain imprisoned now.

*In November 2022, young people all over China reportedly launched an anti-lockdown campaign by holding a blank A4 paper as their symbol of being silenced and grounded. If authorities were to respond by arresting people simply for holding blank papers, it would make their crackdown unjustified.

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©2023 C. J. Anderson-Wu
All rights reserved

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