Yaoniang

By Anonymous May 24, 2023

Artwork by Katelyn Zhang, Del Norte High School, '26

Yao Niang dances with the grace of the stars, lotus feet grazing the stage floor with the presence of crescent moons. Emperor Li Yu claps, his face alight, as if it could mask the steady tears of blood, scraping their way down Yao Niang’s heart.

Birth

Since our birth, our mothers had told us of the

Story of Yao Niang, our fate one rung above our heads,

Out of our grasp, like the moon that hangs above the stars,

Grace and silver beauty lit alight.

And they had told us, again and again:

Through pain comes beauty, and through beauty comes grace,

And through grace comes prosperity,

With wistful, knowing smiles, as if their words held something

We couldn’t understand.

And yet we sat in silence as Yao Niang pranced across the night sky,

Her lotus feet were like the moon, her silent tears forming

Our sunny illusions.

Bright but ignored as we bore through our pain

To shine like her stars.

And we reminded ourselves through our pain

Of Yao Niang, our heroine, that the putrid pus

That filled our bandages with each passing moon

Would polish our broken feet into golden lotuses.

Yao Niang, our heroine.

That kept the youth in obedience but wrinkled our

Mother’s brow.

And yet we never asked why;

Our dreams, our future promises,

All born for our fathers to give away.

Marriage

We only remembered that we had smiled

When our bones broke and gave way,

The shattering like music to our ears.

One

Step closer to our golden lotus feet.

One

Step closer to the dreams of marriage from our childhood.

One step closer to the confinements of our adulthood.

And four steps away from freedom.

Already our childhood illusions of Yao Niang’s prosperity were giving way,

Our dreams of a happy marriage with our new (painful) broken feet

Shattered along with the rest of our bones.

Loneliness

Even in adulthood, we recounted Yao Niang’s story,

The poor maiden who had won the emperor’s favor

With her beautifully bound lotus feet,

Her grace of the new moon’s.

And she was our hero,

The reason we smiled when our bones

Bent and bowed in their tight bandages.

Why we forced ourselves to smile as we approached

The loveless arms of our estranged husbands

After our wedding ceremony.

Why we nodded and complied with our husbands orders

In hopes of prosperity, handed away in a marriage

Seal by our fathers, our dreams shattering one by one.

And she was why our mothers frowned at

Her story, forcing them into loveless marriages

Only to repeat the same one generation down.

And we recounted that we smiled at her story

Like the crescent moon, we had worshiped in the sky.

Yao Niang, who was the most beautiful maiden

Of the emperor’s court, her feet with the presence

Of new moons, as graceful as the moon and stars.

And only after so many years did we finally understand

Our mother’s true meaning behind their fabled,

Misunderstood words.

We would never be happy;

Yao Niang’s and our existences would forever be

Guarded in the arms of men.

We didn’t understand.

Yao Niang bows gracefully down at the emperor’s applause, silent sobs never once breaking her delicate illusion. She smiles, her true confessions written on her feet in bloody bandages and broken bones.