Meet Michael.
on the prohibition of love and life
Happy AANHPI & APIDA Heritage month! All month, I’ll be featuring phenomenal humans from the Asian diaspora, along with a snapshot of their creative work. Each of these friends is someone I treasure deeply and think you should know, learn from, support, and follow.
Meet Michael Stalcup.
Loving
by Michael Stalcup
I look down at my warm brown hands
and hold in them the thought
that my own parents—Mom,
an immigrant from Thailand,
Dad, a white man born in Kansas—
grew up in a time when plenty
folks who looked like them
were not allowed to wed,
their loving still prohibited
by law. I came just decades late
enough to miss that hateful show
and only later came to know
that inconceivable reality
that would have barred my breath
before I had begun to breathe—
its sharp blade missing me
by less than half a century, less than a lifetime wedged
between loving my life
and never knowing it.
And knowing this reminds me
this has never been my home,
for I am imaged after One
whose birth was heaven kissing earth,
whose eyes of fire will one day burn
and bend and break systemic
swords like these, remixing,
making them into his plowshares,
making way for people
planting seeds.
This poem was originally published in Asian American Christian Collaborative’s Reclaim Magazine on May 2, 2023 and is reprinted with permission. You can read the original here.
Michael Stalcup is a Thai American poet living in Bangkok, Thailand. His poems have been published in Sojourners, Red Letter Christians, and The Lent Project. He co-leads Spirit & Scribe (a workshop about spiritual formation and writing) and the PAX Fellowship's 2024-2025 Emerging Writers Cohort.
Find and follow Michael here:
Newsletter: michaelstalcup.substack.com
Instagram: @michaelstalcup
Facebook: @michaelstalcuppoetry
Website: michaelstalcup.com
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