day 336

In 1975, my 12 year old mother was stripped from her city home in Phnom Penh, Cambodia and confined to a concentration camp in the jungle. Our history books merely touch on the subject and we never talk about the two million deaths of our ancestry.

The Cambodians were divided by age and sent to work to death. If you were an intellectual, a businessman, a Buddhist, or a foreigner, you were considered rotten. My mother's group was assigned to harvest apples.

I do not ask my parents questions. I do not ask them why they are divorced. I do not ask them about the genocide. When I am hungry for more answers, I do not ask them to feed me more of this abandoned textbook glory. When everyone asks me if my name is my real name, I do not ask them why they named me Princess. In the fourth grade, when girls learn the art of being catty, I learned to hum along to the tether of a metal bat against my head.

My parents do not have an ordinary love story. My mother's father was shot in the head for being a man of higher power. While harvesting apples, my seedling of a mother ate a bruised one. A soldier caught her in the act and dragged her by ear miles through the dirt to shame her. I am the daughter of a survivor. I am the granddaughter of a man who died for his beliefs. When people tell me they don't believe my name is Princess, I scream loud to drown out the ringing. 

After an open mic, I told a boy to give me space. When I talk about my rape, I am every mile of dirt my mother was dragged through. He responds with a rape joke. Like it is a silent prayer to somehow wake up in bed with me. My parents tell me I do not know the struggle of surviving. I do not ask them how it feels to compare a rape to a genocide. I speak softly. I do not ask them how it feels to have the culture stripped of you before you learn to say your own name in native tongue.

My Cambodian nickname is Kabee. It translates to baby. It is pronounced like cubby. Like cubicle. But I am not an open space for questions that I do not need to answer. I am a mouth filled with angry tongue and all the buzzing of killer bees. My given name is Princess. I am the heiress to a survival game. I come from a family of survivors. Even those who didn't make it. If you ask me if my name is real, I will respond again and again to drown out the ringing. If you think I am a liar, I will rise from the dirt. I do not hear your bullets. I do not hear your bullshit.