Houshan

Looking back—
The path folds upon itself.

Moss damp,
remembering the shape of every step;
Mist thins into cold,
swallowing what was never spoken.

Looking back,
the world, rotating, slips out of order;
a black pupil
falls into night.

In the dark,
a softness holds the body;
in weightlessness,
the heart begins its small trembling.

Looking back,
Houshan is no longer distant—
she breathes
from within.

I touch
the rubble scattered in the ruins;
I inhale
the faint orange drifting from memory.
The things
still coming together…

And I see, in that place,
a girl stitched with golden cracks.       

November, 2025

Houshan, a colloquial term meaning ‘back mountain’ - a name for undefined, marginal terrain rather than an official place—refers to a site in Southwest China that has undergone six decades of transformation, evolving from wild hinterland to military-industrial zone and, later, to fragmented post-industrial ruins. Using these ruins as its field of inquiry, the project traces the entanglement of memory, place, time, power, and the body.