The Mirrored Fate of a Veteran
To Rip Bliss
written by: C. J. Anderson-Wu
Marching through the heat-thick jungles,
Wading into the hostility of bad waters.
The ambushes I endured,
The bullets you outran.
My survival,
Your death, or
Vice versa.
Wounds never healed,
Only overgrown with the pomp of memory.
My delusions of valor,
Your unrelenting trauma, or
Vice versa.
The medal of green, yellow and red ribbon is earned
Through orange agents that solved no war
But mapped the limits of mercy.
My haunted nights,
Your scattered diaspora, or
Vice versa.
Now I am leaving this lifelong battlefield,
Surrendering my personal history to your interpretation.
And resting, at last,
In the peace
We both missed
Half a century ago.
C.J. ANDERSON-WU (吳介禎) is a Taiwanese writer who has published fiction collections about Taiwan's military dictatorship (1949–1987), known as White Terror: Impossible to Swallow (2017) and The Surveillance (2021). Her third book Endangered Youth—Taiwan, Hong Kong, Ukraine has been launched in April 2025. Her works have been shortlisted for a number of international literary awards, including the International Human Rights Art Festival and the 2024 Flying Island Poetry Manuscript Competition. She also won the Strands Lit International Flash Fiction Competition, the Invisible City Blurred Genre Literature Competition, and the Wordweavers Literature Contest.
Latest posts by C. J. Anderson-Wu (see all)
- The Mirrored Fate of a Veteran - August 24, 2025
- A Promised Rose Garden - May 7, 2025
- The Daughter of A Political Dissident - January 8, 2024
