I am trying to steep in the good, the sweet, the pure. I am trying to let myself steep, release. Become a cup of something golden, full, warming, meant for sipping.
The rhythm of the blues
The moon in the cobalt deep blue water. The moon rising white in the baby blue of the late afternoon. Loving, embracing, I am absorbing every ounce. Light dancing, golden strands reaching. My sun. Sunlight through trees, movement in between. I will break your heart if you want me to, lovely.
‘I’m excited to be alone for a little while.’
Oh, are you?
I’ll show you lonely. If you want me to.
Repentance
‘Being in the body is a test for the soul.’
Being in the body is a fundamentally symbolic act. Just a means to the end: salvation. The original sin: shame. The original sin: indulgence. The original sin: pride. Do you know the beginning of the Word? Can your tongue begin to wrap around its silhouette?
The word is tender, the word is pleasure, the word is bite, the word is sunlight glistening on water.
We are meant to bask.
I am slithering. The reeds, they hiss at me sweetly. I want to hiss back but. I. bitemytongue. Shame.
I am in sackcloth and ashes. I am covered in soot. I am a penitent and I must bear it.
The Sun and The Moon
I am wanting to balance you, desperate to balance everything. Learning to be the sum of halves. I am Adam. I am Eve. I am constellating, grasping, embracing duality. You radiate and I am compelled like everyone else; the coyote howling, the birds singing. I can’t take my eyes off of you.
There is a spider web on the ceiling fan
The fan spins and spins and I wonder when was the last time it stopped. With the lights on all through the night, the day, I doubt it ever does. I imagine a spider crafting, weaving, all the while its world spins. I admire its composure.
I learned to love on the number one. How one pair of hands tracing circles along my back and one pair of shoes of one other beyond me were waiting outside of my single room. I learned to love through one step at a time. By looking down and counting steps as they came. I learned to love by counting distance by miles down one at a time. Watching my mileage wrack up one by one and getting closer to the learning one by one by one by one by one…
On the number two:
There were two of us. Two in a family of women. Two of us caught under the feather duvet in the morning, wrestling with words against or worry of a world beyond us. Two of us against all of them, against parents of twos with kids of ones, twos, threes, fours, etc. I would count their babies from my car, wondering at their twos and how they managed to love so many when Mama and I were still learning how to love each other. Her regret a burden, my hurt a wound. Pain in twos, growing with their babies–their faces never changing and their meaning never weaning. There were two of us.
On the number three:
“God was the reason you didn’t spiral.” I still know how to use a rosary. If you put beads in my hands I would still think about praying, I would think about a spot to sit and think and talk in my heart and into my mind and find a time to sing because my teacher in elementary school (third grade) told me that singing is praying twice and that’s not something I’ll ever forget because I was a kid and I wanted my prayers to be heard because everyone else had something they were saying about God and all I had were questions left unanswered. “Keep praying,” she whispered. My fidgeting a mystery. And now, looking back, I wonder how they expected us to sit and talk to someone who wasn’t there. How they were the people who called people crazy and yet they asked us, repeatedly, to talk to a painting of a man who wasn’t going to talk back. Who probably was just a good public speaker? Don’t listen to me, I’m still think about praying to his mother–the innocent one who didn’t ask to be pregnant but at least still hears, “full of grace” when the kids in the chapel need something or are told to keep wanting, more.
On the number four:
I haven’t cried in four months. I haven’t heaved up sorrow like I used to, serving it up on a platter of “Here I am” “I’m fed up!” “Tired, mom, just tired.” My cousins and I used to work up our emotions together, fight through them with fits and unbraced teeth. We would snarl and wail until our parents turned with identical eyes, trying to see. I never saw my uncle crouch. He was a tall man, 6’4” and always regretting something or another. I didn’t get it then, the regret, how it laces up adulthood and ties a double knotted bow. I didn’t get it until I spent time unraveling that tight knot with chewed up fingernails, a hopeless task despite hopeful trying.
On the number five:
I noticed light through slip window shades when I hit kindergarten. I would go to sleep with skin knees and wake up with scabs, sometimes fresh scratches from restless sleep. With ragged hair, I would climb up and out of bed towards broken light, scanning the morning for reason to stay home and bathe in fresh warm. It was our secret, between the rising sun and I, that I wanted to stay and that she wanted to keep me. I knew if I reached up and out–if I staggered, faltered, fumbled, and fell enough then I would find a day when the sun would sweep me up in even temperature. Her motherly love molten and magnificent, my face (sun-kissed), pressed tight right under her collar bone. The moon couldn’t touch us, only wave. We would look down, laughing, at all of the people of the morning trying to peek up at us through their own broken, waiting.
JANUARY
is when I open the vacuum bag and think “yeah, that’s salvageable.” Every year the church passes out free calendars with Bible verses printed on the back of each month. Every year I flip to the one for July and read it to myself, like a horoscope. Maybe I’m a little bit obsessed with signs. But it’s just that if there is a Great Plan, I want to be in on it. I want to pick up the phone from the other room, pull out the paper and pen, bite off the cap, and start taking notes. Every year I look at my mess of parts and wish I hadn’t lost the manual. There’s something to be said about how past humans looked at stars and clumped them into constellations, back when we thought gods spat out stars like watermelon seeds; how we scrambled to read the dregs they left behind. Even now the habit hasn’t gone away. Mythology. Astrology. Theology. No matter how hard science tries to woo us, we’re still in conversation with the sky. As for me, I want to be explained without using ‘I’.
MARCH
walks through the door and stands on my chair. It says, “Full steam ahead.” My interest in basketball ended when I moved to Houston and the Bulls stopped being my home team, but I like hearing in the halls what fans call their tournament: March Madness. Because it is. Green everywhere outside because the grasses started getting bolder after realizing the sun’s here to stay. Green everywhere inside because the groceries started putting up their St. Patrick’s displays after hearing the clock strike midnight on February 15th. Green everywhere all the time because we’re right in the middle of the spring semester and if you pause to take a breath we’ll leave you behind. Ready? Set. Green light—Gogogogogo. If you’re not running on empty then are you even in the race? I catch myself tripping over my tongue to tell someone how busy I am. There’s a number on my chest that I don’t recognize. I don’t even know how I got here.
JUNE
rushes in like a savior: always last minute, always in the nick of time, always barging on stage for the final scene right when hope bows out. I celebrate its arrival with the others like I’m meant to do—the whole triumphal procession. I weep in relief, throw up my arms, toss paper in the air and watch it flutter down. It feels like that in the beginning. Like an emancipation. But two weeks later, I’m lying on my back on the cool wood of my bedroom floor, chewing watermelon seeds and watching the ceiling fan spin and listening to the cicadas creak outside my window. What a waste. All this Time, flowing beneath me in great currents, and all I can do is let it nudge me in the direction it moves, like a useless log. Maybe I need to be more Goal Oriented (this is my dad). Maybe I need to draw a circle and cut it into 12 slices and maybe then I can have my cake and eat it too.
SEPTEMBER
marks the tail end of monsoon season. I have this thing I do where I go outside when I think it’s going to storm. My mom is in the kitchen. She hears the back door open and close and leaves a towel waiting by the shoe rack for when I come back inside, shivering and soaked to the bone. I like the waiting part. I like standing still under all that greyish dark blue. The first few drops are like a kiss on the cheek, whisper soft and barely there. Then the rain comes down harder and harder until it falls in heavy sheets, beating against my skull as if it’s trying to bury itself inside. If it asked to be let in, I would open the door. From the top of my head, I would drown my body with the roar of white noise, until it overflowed and spilled out of my ears. I like this better than baptism.
NOVEMBER
knows it’s my favorite, so it takes its time to come around. With it brings cold air so crisp you could crack into it like an apple. I take deep inhales and hold it in my lungs for as long as I can. This is gingko tree weather. On days like these I am lit up, inside out, in yellow. Even halos don’t seem far-fetched. I could reach out and pluck it off the heads of every stranger I meet. I walk down the streets of my neighborhood, transformed by bright carpets of fallen leaves, and I feel so much love for this changed world that I don’t know what to do.
On hands:
My mom used to squeeze my hand three times. I love you. An unspoken whisper of affection. At the time, love is pure, love in kind. Her soft hand, never clammy, is twice the size of mine. I don’t hold my mother’s hand anymore. It is different now. Now, he slides his hand, strong and callused, into my back pocket. Three squeezes. I love you. Two different hands, different squeezes, same message delivered. There is a such fine line between tenderness and salaciousness.
On flowers:
What a sad existence. We cut them, rip their stems out of the ground, succumb them to a skinny vase, suffocating, forgetting to nourish them, their petals browning and then falling, dying a slow death, unshielded, vulnerable. They go on display, in our kitchens, bedrooms, countertops, just to die on a stage. Glorified homicide indeed.
On phone calls:
My heart thumps. I rehearse under my breath, mumbling words I have said thousands of times, reading and rereading the sticky note my mother has handed me. Doubt pools in my gut, sloshing around beyond my stomach walls. I pace up and down the hallway. I muster up the courage and hit call. Hi, could I have one large half cheese half pepperoni, please?
On body hair:
When I was 8, my brother told me I was half-gorilla. He pointed to my hairy arms and teased and taunted. I felt my face turn hot and my eyes well up and my mother yelled at him to stop but the damage was done. I snuck into the kitchen that night, small and slender and pale, like a white mouse scurrying down the stairs. I took the kitchen scissors and cut my arm hair off. The result was a mild crime scene: small scrapes and criminally uneven arm hair. Just more reasons for Joe to tease me. I wept onto the granite countertop, which was sprinkled with my hastily removed fur.
On The Bob Newhart Show:
Lanky limbs strewn across a brown leather couch. My grandfather, sturdy and reluctant, sips his gin and tonic. I, floppy and eager, chug my pink lemonade. Could I have more lemonade please, Nonna? Mr. Newhart’s dry humor and comedic timing made my grandpa chuckle which makes me chuckle. When my grandpa laughs I know that I should too. He knows what is funny. I watch him as much as I watch the TV.
On Post-It Notes
Clingy. Attached to the surfaces around me, they stare and ever remind me of what should have long be forgotten; if only I remembered to put them up.
On Windows or Mirrors or Both
The first woman to ever look at a clean mirror was shocked to discover it had been herself in that body all along. The amazement turned to reprimand as she put finger to glass and carved out each forty-or-so imperfections along her skin. She grew obsessed, as if her eyes had not ever seen love before. Now she stares out the window, tight shut but open; waiting for someone to see her.
On the Titanic
No major news outlet from underwater reported the admission of fifteen hundred undocumented bodies to their home. The civil society alike met them with a cold response. One trout may have witnessed commotion but vanished without trace.
On Texting
Water falling on an aluminum pot. Fire and patience. My grandmother can’t read technology—not more than she can Chinese characters or my embarrassed expression of loving a guy too much. I stare down; no new developments.
On Marathons
The main argument for bird-based mail delivery is not having to travel and run and lie and die to deliver a word. How different would Pheidippides’ life been had he met the transformative power of pigeons? I can’t assert there were pigeons in Ancient Greece—maybe his needless death is ultimate proof—but I am sure there was an odd bird around that could spend him a favor. Bird in message, he could walk back in time to cook some sparrow for dinner.
An escape from reality; a short trip to the land of fast cars, strategic conquests, and infinite storylines.
On Dreams
I was so busy dreaming; about Nobel prizes; about Olympic gold medals; about marrying the love of my life; about happiness; that I forgot nightmares were dreams too.
On the Sine Curve
A basic trigonometric function. A common occurrence in discussions about waves, angles, time periods, and other subjects closely related to our existence.
A change of perspective.
An up and down curve. A seemingly accurate description of life.
On Addiction
From sucking my thumb, to tennis, to Fortnite, to that one girl, to poker, to coding, to who knows what’s next. I have an addiction to addiction, and the only way to get rid of one is to find another.
On Music
A rap song to lift weights to, a pop song to dance to, an electronic song to study to, a slow song to contemplate life to, a country song to remind you of home, a rock song to start your day. A sound for every mood. The secret to happiness.
On Rain.
The viscous air gurgles in through cracks in the window. It must have rained last night.
On swimming.
Her name was Lila. She refused to swim. The pool in the backyard next to the braided rope swing that lounges underneath the oak tree is full of leaves, it needs to be cleaned.
On Birthday Parties.
Expanding, ballooning, enlarging, bulging, bursting. Finishing the last piece of cake finished me off. I filled to capacity on grapes and chips and soda and cookies and pizza and brownies and still I ate cake. I filled and then some. I won’t be able to walk home. My mom will have to pick me up.
On Studying.
Hunched over an array of keys, the only light emanating from their screen. My eyes haven’t blinked in minutes. I can’t remember when I started writing, or what I’m writing, or why I’m writing. The assignment is due at 8 a.m. Or 9 a.m. Or possibly 7 p.m. I’ll have it done by noon.
On Running.
I ran a quarter-mile today. And walked the rest. I’m a fat loser. She laughed; it must be true.
On potatoes, on bread, on broccoli, on his little grubby face as he copied the great-grandfather he can’t remember. On the lid, on the plate, on the counter, just not on the food. And of course, now his teenage hormones tell him don’t clean it up and don’t listen to the sister. Eat broccoli and you’ll be tall. But the broccoli has got to be accompanied by ketchup. He can’t remember why he likes ketchup, guess it’s in his blood.
On Physics
I can only float in dreams. Only if I balance myself just right. Don’t fly, apparently, I still abide by physics. But its no fair invisible and unexplainable and mysterious laws seep into dreams. Physics is the worst science. All made up. Physics makes me float.
On shuffling
Never select the song you want to hear. Always hit “shuffle songs” until that song pops up. Don’t mess with the order. The less you want it the faster it comes.
On Claws
Never have had nails long enough to paint. People cared, those fingers didn’t. They were more focused on shifting thorough seaweed, turning over rocks, getting pinched by someone else’s claws. The skinnier claw of the lobster, the pincher, did the most damage to those fingers. Green crab claws have the record in number of scars on those fingers. Sand gets stuck in long nails. Stress gets stuck in long nails.
On a Whir
It’s the loneliest sound. A whir, mechanical, starting up, staticky, resonating, thinking, humming to itself. Coming from the atmospheric distance. Trying to fill space. Will keep whirring when everything’s gone. Last sound in the world.
On figure skating:
You always feel twice as graceful as you truly are; play back the video and notice the bend in your straightened leg, the forward leaning, the time you thought you jumped so high yet remained a mere inch from the surface of the ice…
On tea:
Sipped with hunched shoulders on the shared linoleum of dorm room floors, eyes locked and unlocked and locked again. “I’ve never told anyone that before,” she says with glassy eyes.
On the Cartesian coordinate system:
You can graph almost anything if you bend the truth far enough, place enough artificial boundaries on the abstract. My exhaustion as I write this, for example, starting at a y-intercept value of y=tired and increasing exponentially with time along the x-axis (limit the domain to x=positive values of time). F(x)=(amount of homework)x+tired, where F(x) represents fatigue with respect to time.
On “just doing it:”
Nike apparel has always screamed this to me from every department store rack I turn my head towards, but I never listened. Not in the ways that count or in the ways I will remember. Until recently, the ‘ifs’ ‘ands’ and ‘buts’ have always won the mental battle of “to do or not to do.” But last night, Nike spoke a little more firmly in my ear.
On wool:
Bags and boxes of the stuff, shoved into the garage, rank with the scent of lanolin and mud. Sticky, oily fingers, fingers who wanted to touch but aren’t so sure now that they can’t find a sink nearby. The rhythmic sound of punching needles, looping the fibers in on themselves like haphazard weaving.
The sweet peach juice runs down my wrist while I eat it on the sun-tanned porch. I watch an army of ants crawl up the rusty rain gutter, each ant following their leader. I finish the peach and lick my arms free of the stickiness. The ants have reached the top.
On the Ocean:
The river on the ocean only comes out at night. Only comes out when the sky is dark enough to let the moon beam, casting a white trail across the black waves. At night I lie down on the cold sand and listen to the gentle crashing of water. I sometimes stare at the tiny stars for so long that they begin to move; I wonder why this is. I get up when my blankets can’t keep me warm anymore and walk barefoot, up the cliffs and through the croaking field. My toes don’t know whether they are trudging through mud or stepping on toads.
“Two drifters off to see the world
There’s such a crazy world to see
We’re all chasin’ after all the same
Chasing after our rainbow’s end”
— Moon River by Frank Ocean
On View of the Mountains from the Back Windows of Davis Library:
I put sunscreen on everyday because mom tells me that, unless I need to use a flashlight outside to see, my skin is prone to sun damage. Today I forgot to put on my sunscreen, even though the sky is bluer and sunnier than it has been all week. The sky is so happily blue that I can hardly stop looking at it. Two mountains peek out behind the ones in front of them. Their peaks are so white, interrupting the blue and brown that has overwhelmed the windows. Greenland has much more ice than Iceland, and Iceland has much more green than Greenland. Right now, the Green Mountain Range has much more white (and brown) than green.
On the Dentist:
At my dentist office they rank their patient’s teeth cleaning skills from 0-36, with 0 being perfect and 36 being the worst. The dentists determine your score by coating your teeth in pink dye, then rinsing out your mouth. The dye sticks to the plaque on your teeth, revealing the inadequacy of your brushing. I get a 1 every damn time… but isn’t everything about perfection?
On Redwood Trees:
I want to get married in a redwood forest. In a redwood forest the cool air feels heavy— the sweeping tree branches protect their visitors with love. And when I get married I hope everyone can feel the love.
Orange, white, yellow, red, green. The colors scream “eat me.” Always bite the heads of first. Why? Look into the eyes of a gummy bear and you find no soul; conclusive evidence that they cannot be trusted. The duality of gummy bears is this: sickly sweet, chewy goodness in fun colors vs. jaw pain and debilitating migraines. For those with no self-control, the latter is a constant reality.
On Growing Up
A greater appreciation for good pens and socks and all of the little things in life. The vibrant sparks of joy that ignite when hearing a smile creep into a familiar voice. Captivating to the wandering eye; the deep and vivid azure of the sky. So deep that if the world were upside down, you could fall through it forever. The certainty that somebody wants to share this with you. The unexpected end of a reverie yet to begin
On Dreams
A young Japanese girl dreams of learning English to live a life beyond home; to learn a new home. She’s uncertain of where life will take her, but certain that she wants this. She starts running through the years. Then jogging. Then walking. She died at 52; her remaining dreams left a tragic enigma.
On Cherry Blossoms
A young boy proudly believes that cherry blossoms bloom in May. They don’t. Don’t tell him that though.
On the Brain
The brain does not unlearn. It cannot be anything but fallible once it knows of its faults. Some days can’t help but be tugged downwards, and that’s ok. Nothing will heal by pretending to be healed. Imagine the embrace you miss so much and squeeze tight.
I’ve always hated the rain. The way it trickles down from clouds. The way it gathers in reflective puddles by my feet. The way it sneaks under my umbrella, slips down my spine. The way it mixes with tears, like two identical paint colors whipped together. On my cheeks, the canvas. You can’t tell the difference.
2. On Frozen Strawberries
Climb. Climb to the top of that balcony overlooking the mountains, with the Mediterranean Sun beating down your back. Climb that cobblestone road, past the one-eyed blinking gray cat. Into the kitchen where the tall glass sits, filled to the brim with thawed strawberries the size of my pinky-toe nail. Sprinkle with sugar. Enjoy.
3. On Blue Lobsters
Had a pet lobster once. It was bright blue, almost glowing. I named it Miles. He lived for maybe a week. My dad gave me his body. I buried him in the backyard next to the rosebush I’d forgotten to water. I wasn’t ready for the step up from beta fish to lobster owner.
4. On Big Foreheads
“That’s why I got bangs”, Aunt Nancy says, brushing them aside. She looks at me, wiggles her head. Her bangs sweep back into place, a curtain hanging, concealing. She doesn’t have to tell me. I know what she’s thinking. I should get bangs too.
5. On Snow Globes
180 degrees. World upside down. Tree trunks where the sky should be. Feet stuck to pavement, people hanging upside down, helpless. Shimmering white, a snow storm. Zero visibility. A world that slips from its steady cradle. From Atlas’ burdened shoulders. Hits the floor with a crack.
Alliances are made in the dark, and subsequently brought into the light. There it becomes clear. No longer uncomfortable in the dark, now that you can see, proper judgement can be made: is this individual worthy of the title “friend”. If light shines, and no virtue is found, drop them off at the bus stop. There is no need to keep the weak by your side. They will only waste you away. The virtuous though, they will strengthen you for the storm.
On Breakfast
The break from the night’s fast. The quietest meal. The smallest meal. The best way to start a good day.
On the Zone
The zone is where you go while performing. Energy is focused, and focus is laser. Everything is, and you are. You have been placed perfectly, and execution is your only task. You have been gifted it, and the only compliance for which you are obliged: use it.
On Music
The soothing sounds that we use as a backdrop to our existence. It could not be everything, but it is something. I can hear it, feel it, imitate it. It makes me move, helps me grove, and changes my attitude. It is sounds with a reason, and rhymes with some meaning.
On Believing
There needs to be a reason to believe. They say faith is lost when everything is alright. There needs to be signs clearly posted for all to see. Only then will they believe, because talk is cheap, and true patrons will only spend money on the real thing.
Yours is too fast for the position we’re in, curled behind me like you’re magnet-stuck. I can feel it pulsing through my back. Slow down, we have nowhere to go.
2. On dullness
I smashed a window with my heel, but it was too easy. Two panes of glass splintered and split so fast, smooth. Winter air rushing in at me, my temperature plunging enough to remind me of fullness and feeling the blood pulse through to the furthest reaches of my fingers.
3. On bread
A house full of worn wood, a general layer of dust. How long will it take to be old in the way I want to be? Scrape the dough from underneath my nails and then our hands pressed together, interlocked until the oven timer dings, pulls us apart, bread crusty and golden in our mouths.
4. On pink
You’re flushed, your cheeks saturated with something I can’t mirror back at you. Today’s last light sinks lower and lower in streaks of faded rose.
5. On dark circles
In the crowded room, light inverted and wrong, so all I see are the empty places. I fill the gaps with my body, catch eyes with you and the pools of shadow hanging off your lower lashes. They pull me down heavy, get me stuck–get me out–but I can’t swim back up and now the gaps have closed, melded together into an uncrossable sea of other eyes I can’t bear to meet.
She would play her favorite music, like Frankie Valley, and ask her passengers (as they looked out the window and pictured soaring above the telephone poles) who knew who Frankie Valley was, and if they knew that she had a crush on him as a girl. Leo would roll his face towards me, grinning, his head secured by.a seatbelt.
Picture a shoe. A sneaker, faded black high-top Converse Chuck Taylor All-Stars that has been worn down by pavement/grass/hard dirt. Let your mind wander and feel around where the skin of the shoe is thin and where the rubber soles are fat. Imagine holding this idea of a shoe by its laces, and feel how it would catch and spin and twirl if you flicked your wrist up and down in sudden movements, making the shoe dance like a marionette.
My grandmother would drop chunks of pineapples and chunks of pears into gelatin. There they would sit, collecting the viscous ooze and letting it set into their DNA, waiting until they were filled to the brim with Jell-O-ness. Then at last they’d relax, satisfied with saccharine dreams.
A user shouted into the gone: “what if we made a sword from mercury? A sword of liquid metal, with all the heat sucked out so that it was a frozen husk? Would it melt when it met your skin?”
Throughout history, nothing has happened. Flip through any history textbook, and you’ll turn from blank page to blank page. There is so little happening in history that they have to cut entire forests down to the blistering earth just to mush the trees into page after page of nothing.
Tea drinking
I am trying to steep in the good, the sweet, the pure. I am trying to let myself steep, release. Become a cup of something golden, full, warming, meant for sipping.
The rhythm of the blues
The moon in the cobalt deep blue water. The moon rising white in the baby blue of the late afternoon. Loving, embracing, I am absorbing every ounce. Light dancing, golden strands reaching. My sun. Sunlight through trees, movement in between. I will break your heart if you want me to, lovely.
‘I’m excited to be alone for a little while.’
Oh, are you?
I’ll show you lonely. If you want me to.
Repentance
‘Being in the body is a test for the soul.’
Being in the body is a fundamentally symbolic act. Just a means to the end: salvation. The original sin: shame. The original sin: indulgence. The original sin: pride. Do you know the beginning of the Word? Can your tongue begin to wrap around its silhouette?
The word is tender, the word is pleasure, the word is bite, the word is sunlight glistening on water.
We are meant to bask.
I am slithering. The reeds, they hiss at me sweetly. I want to hiss back but. I. bitemytongue. Shame.
I am in sackcloth and ashes. I am covered in soot. I am a penitent and I must bear it.
The Sun and The Moon
I am wanting to balance you, desperate to balance everything. Learning to be the sum of halves. I am Adam. I am Eve. I am constellating, grasping, embracing duality. You radiate and I am compelled like everyone else; the coyote howling, the birds singing. I can’t take my eyes off of you.
There is a spider web on the ceiling fan
The fan spins and spins and I wonder when was the last time it stopped. With the lights on all through the night, the day, I doubt it ever does. I imagine a spider crafting, weaving, all the while its world spins. I admire its composure.
On the number one:
I learned to love on the number one. How one pair of hands tracing circles along my back and one pair of shoes of one other beyond me were waiting outside of my single room. I learned to love through one step at a time. By looking down and counting steps as they came. I learned to love by counting distance by miles down one at a time. Watching my mileage wrack up one by one and getting closer to the learning one by one by one by one by one…
On the number two:
There were two of us. Two in a family of women. Two of us caught under the feather duvet in the morning, wrestling with words against or worry of a world beyond us. Two of us against all of them, against parents of twos with kids of ones, twos, threes, fours, etc. I would count their babies from my car, wondering at their twos and how they managed to love so many when Mama and I were still learning how to love each other. Her regret a burden, my hurt a wound. Pain in twos, growing with their babies–their faces never changing and their meaning never weaning. There were two of us.
On the number three:
“God was the reason you didn’t spiral.” I still know how to use a rosary. If you put beads in my hands I would still think about praying, I would think about a spot to sit and think and talk in my heart and into my mind and find a time to sing because my teacher in elementary school (third grade) told me that singing is praying twice and that’s not something I’ll ever forget because I was a kid and I wanted my prayers to be heard because everyone else had something they were saying about God and all I had were questions left unanswered. “Keep praying,” she whispered. My fidgeting a mystery. And now, looking back, I wonder how they expected us to sit and talk to someone who wasn’t there. How they were the people who called people crazy and yet they asked us, repeatedly, to talk to a painting of a man who wasn’t going to talk back. Who probably was just a good public speaker? Don’t listen to me, I’m still think about praying to his mother–the innocent one who didn’t ask to be pregnant but at least still hears, “full of grace” when the kids in the chapel need something or are told to keep wanting, more.
On the number four:
I haven’t cried in four months. I haven’t heaved up sorrow like I used to, serving it up on a platter of “Here I am” “I’m fed up!” “Tired, mom, just tired.” My cousins and I used to work up our emotions together, fight through them with fits and unbraced teeth. We would snarl and wail until our parents turned with identical eyes, trying to see. I never saw my uncle crouch. He was a tall man, 6’4” and always regretting something or another. I didn’t get it then, the regret, how it laces up adulthood and ties a double knotted bow. I didn’t get it until I spent time unraveling that tight knot with chewed up fingernails, a hopeless task despite hopeful trying.
On the number five:
I noticed light through slip window shades when I hit kindergarten. I would go to sleep with skin knees and wake up with scabs, sometimes fresh scratches from restless sleep. With ragged hair, I would climb up and out of bed towards broken light, scanning the morning for reason to stay home and bathe in fresh warm. It was our secret, between the rising sun and I, that I wanted to stay and that she wanted to keep me. I knew if I reached up and out–if I staggered, faltered, fumbled, and fell enough then I would find a day when the sun would sweep me up in even temperature. Her motherly love molten and magnificent, my face (sun-kissed), pressed tight right under her collar bone. The moon couldn’t touch us, only wave. We would look down, laughing, at all of the people of the morning trying to peek up at us through their own broken, waiting.
JANUARY
is when I open the vacuum bag and think “yeah, that’s salvageable.” Every year the church passes out free calendars with Bible verses printed on the back of each month. Every year I flip to the one for July and read it to myself, like a horoscope. Maybe I’m a little bit obsessed with signs. But it’s just that if there is a Great Plan, I want to be in on it. I want to pick up the phone from the other room, pull out the paper and pen, bite off the cap, and start taking notes. Every year I look at my mess of parts and wish I hadn’t lost the manual. There’s something to be said about how past humans looked at stars and clumped them into constellations, back when we thought gods spat out stars like watermelon seeds; how we scrambled to read the dregs they left behind. Even now the habit hasn’t gone away. Mythology. Astrology. Theology. No matter how hard science tries to woo us, we’re still in conversation with the sky. As for me, I want to be explained without using ‘I’.
MARCH
walks through the door and stands on my chair. It says, “Full steam ahead.” My interest in basketball ended when I moved to Houston and the Bulls stopped being my home team, but I like hearing in the halls what fans call their tournament: March Madness. Because it is. Green everywhere outside because the grasses started getting bolder after realizing the sun’s here to stay. Green everywhere inside because the groceries started putting up their St. Patrick’s displays after hearing the clock strike midnight on February 15th. Green everywhere all the time because we’re right in the middle of the spring semester and if you pause to take a breath we’ll leave you behind. Ready? Set. Green light—Gogogogogo. If you’re not running on empty then are you even in the race? I catch myself tripping over my tongue to tell someone how busy I am. There’s a number on my chest that I don’t recognize. I don’t even know how I got here.
JUNE
rushes in like a savior: always last minute, always in the nick of time, always barging on stage for the final scene right when hope bows out. I celebrate its arrival with the others like I’m meant to do—the whole triumphal procession. I weep in relief, throw up my arms, toss paper in the air and watch it flutter down. It feels like that in the beginning. Like an emancipation. But two weeks later, I’m lying on my back on the cool wood of my bedroom floor, chewing watermelon seeds and watching the ceiling fan spin and listening to the cicadas creak outside my window. What a waste. All this Time, flowing beneath me in great currents, and all I can do is let it nudge me in the direction it moves, like a useless log. Maybe I need to be more Goal Oriented (this is my dad). Maybe I need to draw a circle and cut it into 12 slices and maybe then I can have my cake and eat it too.
SEPTEMBER
marks the tail end of monsoon season. I have this thing I do where I go outside when I think it’s going to storm. My mom is in the kitchen. She hears the back door open and close and leaves a towel waiting by the shoe rack for when I come back inside, shivering and soaked to the bone. I like the waiting part. I like standing still under all that greyish dark blue. The first few drops are like a kiss on the cheek, whisper soft and barely there. Then the rain comes down harder and harder until it falls in heavy sheets, beating against my skull as if it’s trying to bury itself inside. If it asked to be let in, I would open the door. From the top of my head, I would drown my body with the roar of white noise, until it overflowed and spilled out of my ears. I like this better than baptism.
NOVEMBER
knows it’s my favorite, so it takes its time to come around. With it brings cold air so crisp you could crack into it like an apple. I take deep inhales and hold it in my lungs for as long as I can. This is gingko tree weather. On days like these I am lit up, inside out, in yellow. Even halos don’t seem far-fetched. I could reach out and pluck it off the heads of every stranger I meet. I walk down the streets of my neighborhood, transformed by bright carpets of fallen leaves, and I feel so much love for this changed world that I don’t know what to do.
On hands:
My mom used to squeeze my hand three times. I love you. An unspoken whisper of affection. At the time, love is pure, love in kind. Her soft hand, never clammy, is twice the size of mine. I don’t hold my mother’s hand anymore. It is different now. Now, he slides his hand, strong and callused, into my back pocket. Three squeezes. I love you. Two different hands, different squeezes, same message delivered. There is a such fine line between tenderness and salaciousness.
On flowers:
What a sad existence. We cut them, rip their stems out of the ground, succumb them to a skinny vase, suffocating, forgetting to nourish them, their petals browning and then falling, dying a slow death, unshielded, vulnerable. They go on display, in our kitchens, bedrooms, countertops, just to die on a stage. Glorified homicide indeed.
On phone calls:
My heart thumps. I rehearse under my breath, mumbling words I have said thousands of times, reading and rereading the sticky note my mother has handed me. Doubt pools in my gut, sloshing around beyond my stomach walls. I pace up and down the hallway. I muster up the courage and hit call. Hi, could I have one large half cheese half pepperoni, please?
On body hair:
When I was 8, my brother told me I was half-gorilla. He pointed to my hairy arms and teased and taunted. I felt my face turn hot and my eyes well up and my mother yelled at him to stop but the damage was done. I snuck into the kitchen that night, small and slender and pale, like a white mouse scurrying down the stairs. I took the kitchen scissors and cut my arm hair off. The result was a mild crime scene: small scrapes and criminally uneven arm hair. Just more reasons for Joe to tease me. I wept onto the granite countertop, which was sprinkled with my hastily removed fur.
On The Bob Newhart Show:
Lanky limbs strewn across a brown leather couch. My grandfather, sturdy and reluctant, sips his gin and tonic. I, floppy and eager, chug my pink lemonade. Could I have more lemonade please, Nonna? Mr. Newhart’s dry humor and comedic timing made my grandpa chuckle which makes me chuckle. When my grandpa laughs I know that I should too. He knows what is funny. I watch him as much as I watch the TV.
On Post-It Notes
Clingy. Attached to the surfaces around me, they stare and ever remind me of what should have long be forgotten; if only I remembered to put them up.
On Windows or Mirrors or Both
The first woman to ever look at a clean mirror was shocked to discover it had been herself in that body all along. The amazement turned to reprimand as she put finger to glass and carved out each forty-or-so imperfections along her skin. She grew obsessed, as if her eyes had not ever seen love before. Now she stares out the window, tight shut but open; waiting for someone to see her.
On the Titanic
No major news outlet from underwater reported the admission of fifteen hundred undocumented bodies to their home. The civil society alike met them with a cold response. One trout may have witnessed commotion but vanished without trace.
On Texting
Water falling on an aluminum pot. Fire and patience. My grandmother can’t read technology—not more than she can Chinese characters or my embarrassed expression of loving a guy too much. I stare down; no new developments.
On Marathons
The main argument for bird-based mail delivery is not having to travel and run and lie and die to deliver a word. How different would Pheidippides’ life been had he met the transformative power of pigeons? I can’t assert there were pigeons in Ancient Greece—maybe his needless death is ultimate proof—but I am sure there was an odd bird around that could spend him a favor. Bird in message, he could walk back in time to cook some sparrow for dinner.
On Video Games
An escape from reality; a short trip to the land of fast cars, strategic conquests, and infinite storylines.
On Dreams
I was so busy dreaming; about Nobel prizes; about Olympic gold medals; about marrying the love of my life; about happiness; that I forgot nightmares were dreams too.
On the Sine Curve
A basic trigonometric function. A common occurrence in discussions about waves, angles, time periods, and other subjects closely related to our existence.
A change of perspective.
An up and down curve. A seemingly accurate description of life.
On Addiction
From sucking my thumb, to tennis, to Fortnite, to that one girl, to poker, to coding, to who knows what’s next. I have an addiction to addiction, and the only way to get rid of one is to find another.
On Music
A rap song to lift weights to, a pop song to dance to, an electronic song to study to, a slow song to contemplate life to, a country song to remind you of home, a rock song to start your day. A sound for every mood. The secret to happiness.
On Rain.
The viscous air gurgles in through cracks in the window. It must have rained last night.
On swimming.
Her name was Lila. She refused to swim. The pool in the backyard next to the braided rope swing that lounges underneath the oak tree is full of leaves, it needs to be cleaned.
On Birthday Parties.
Expanding, ballooning, enlarging, bulging, bursting. Finishing the last piece of cake finished me off. I filled to capacity on grapes and chips and soda and cookies and pizza and brownies and still I ate cake. I filled and then some. I won’t be able to walk home. My mom will have to pick me up.
On Studying.
Hunched over an array of keys, the only light emanating from their screen. My eyes haven’t blinked in minutes. I can’t remember when I started writing, or what I’m writing, or why I’m writing. The assignment is due at 8 a.m. Or 9 a.m. Or possibly 7 p.m. I’ll have it done by noon.
On Running.
I ran a quarter-mile today. And walked the rest. I’m a fat loser. She laughed; it must be true.
On Ketchup
On potatoes, on bread, on broccoli, on his little grubby face as he copied the great-grandfather he can’t remember. On the lid, on the plate, on the counter, just not on the food. And of course, now his teenage hormones tell him don’t clean it up and don’t listen to the sister. Eat broccoli and you’ll be tall. But the broccoli has got to be accompanied by ketchup. He can’t remember why he likes ketchup, guess it’s in his blood.
On Physics
I can only float in dreams. Only if I balance myself just right. Don’t fly, apparently, I still abide by physics. But its no fair invisible and unexplainable and mysterious laws seep into dreams. Physics is the worst science. All made up. Physics makes me float.
On shuffling
Never select the song you want to hear. Always hit “shuffle songs” until that song pops up. Don’t mess with the order. The less you want it the faster it comes.
On Claws
Never have had nails long enough to paint. People cared, those fingers didn’t. They were more focused on shifting thorough seaweed, turning over rocks, getting pinched by someone else’s claws. The skinnier claw of the lobster, the pincher, did the most damage to those fingers. Green crab claws have the record in number of scars on those fingers. Sand gets stuck in long nails. Stress gets stuck in long nails.
On a Whir
It’s the loneliest sound. A whir, mechanical, starting up, staticky, resonating, thinking, humming to itself. Coming from the atmospheric distance. Trying to fill space. Will keep whirring when everything’s gone. Last sound in the world.
On figure skating:
You always feel twice as graceful as you truly are; play back the video and notice the bend in your straightened leg, the forward leaning, the time you thought you jumped so high yet remained a mere inch from the surface of the ice…
On tea:
Sipped with hunched shoulders on the shared linoleum of dorm room floors, eyes locked and unlocked and locked again. “I’ve never told anyone that before,” she says with glassy eyes.
On the Cartesian coordinate system:
You can graph almost anything if you bend the truth far enough, place enough artificial boundaries on the abstract. My exhaustion as I write this, for example, starting at a y-intercept value of y=tired and increasing exponentially with time along the x-axis (limit the domain to x=positive values of time). F(x)=(amount of homework)x+tired, where F(x) represents fatigue with respect to time.
On “just doing it:”
Nike apparel has always screamed this to me from every department store rack I turn my head towards, but I never listened. Not in the ways that count or in the ways I will remember. Until recently, the ‘ifs’ ‘ands’ and ‘buts’ have always won the mental battle of “to do or not to do.” But last night, Nike spoke a little more firmly in my ear.
On wool:
Bags and boxes of the stuff, shoved into the garage, rank with the scent of lanolin and mud. Sticky, oily fingers, fingers who wanted to touch but aren’t so sure now that they can’t find a sink nearby. The rhythmic sound of punching needles, looping the fibers in on themselves like haphazard weaving.
On Peaches:
The sweet peach juice runs down my wrist while I eat it on the sun-tanned porch. I watch an army of ants crawl up the rusty rain gutter, each ant following their leader. I finish the peach and lick my arms free of the stickiness. The ants have reached the top.
On the Ocean:
The river on the ocean only comes out at night. Only comes out when the sky is dark enough to let the moon beam, casting a white trail across the black waves. At night I lie down on the cold sand and listen to the gentle crashing of water. I sometimes stare at the tiny stars for so long that they begin to move; I wonder why this is. I get up when my blankets can’t keep me warm anymore and walk barefoot, up the cliffs and through the croaking field. My toes don’t know whether they are trudging through mud or stepping on toads.
“Two drifters off to see the world
There’s such a crazy world to see
We’re all chasin’ after all the same
Chasing after our rainbow’s end”
— Moon River by Frank Ocean
On View of the Mountains from the Back Windows of Davis Library:
I put sunscreen on everyday because mom tells me that, unless I need to use a flashlight outside to see, my skin is prone to sun damage. Today I forgot to put on my sunscreen, even though the sky is bluer and sunnier than it has been all week. The sky is so happily blue that I can hardly stop looking at it. Two mountains peek out behind the ones in front of them. Their peaks are so white, interrupting the blue and brown that has overwhelmed the windows. Greenland has much more ice than Iceland, and Iceland has much more green than Greenland. Right now, the Green Mountain Range has much more white (and brown) than green.
On the Dentist:
At my dentist office they rank their patient’s teeth cleaning skills from 0-36, with 0 being perfect and 36 being the worst. The dentists determine your score by coating your teeth in pink dye, then rinsing out your mouth. The dye sticks to the plaque on your teeth, revealing the inadequacy of your brushing. I get a 1 every damn time… but isn’t everything about perfection?
On Redwood Trees:
I want to get married in a redwood forest. In a redwood forest the cool air feels heavy— the sweeping tree branches protect their visitors with love. And when I get married I hope everyone can feel the love.
On Gummy Bears
Orange, white, yellow, red, green. The colors scream “eat me.” Always bite the heads of first. Why? Look into the eyes of a gummy bear and you find no soul; conclusive evidence that they cannot be trusted. The duality of gummy bears is this: sickly sweet, chewy goodness in fun colors vs. jaw pain and debilitating migraines. For those with no self-control, the latter is a constant reality.
On Growing Up
A greater appreciation for good pens and socks and all of the little things in life. The vibrant sparks of joy that ignite when hearing a smile creep into a familiar voice. Captivating to the wandering eye; the deep and vivid azure of the sky. So deep that if the world were upside down, you could fall through it forever. The certainty that somebody wants to share this with you. The unexpected end of a reverie yet to begin
On Dreams
A young Japanese girl dreams of learning English to live a life beyond home; to learn a new home. She’s uncertain of where life will take her, but certain that she wants this. She starts running through the years. Then jogging. Then walking. She died at 52; her remaining dreams left a tragic enigma.
On Cherry Blossoms
A young boy proudly believes that cherry blossoms bloom in May. They don’t. Don’t tell him that though.
On the Brain
The brain does not unlearn. It cannot be anything but fallible once it knows of its faults. Some days can’t help but be tugged downwards, and that’s ok. Nothing will heal by pretending to be healed. Imagine the embrace you miss so much and squeeze tight.
1. On Rain
I’ve always hated the rain. The way it trickles down from clouds. The way it gathers in reflective puddles by my feet. The way it sneaks under my umbrella, slips down my spine. The way it mixes with tears, like two identical paint colors whipped together. On my cheeks, the canvas. You can’t tell the difference.
2. On Frozen Strawberries
Climb. Climb to the top of that balcony overlooking the mountains, with the Mediterranean Sun beating down your back. Climb that cobblestone road, past the one-eyed blinking gray cat. Into the kitchen where the tall glass sits, filled to the brim with thawed strawberries the size of my pinky-toe nail. Sprinkle with sugar. Enjoy.
3. On Blue Lobsters
Had a pet lobster once. It was bright blue, almost glowing. I named it Miles. He lived for maybe a week. My dad gave me his body. I buried him in the backyard next to the rosebush I’d forgotten to water. I wasn’t ready for the step up from beta fish to lobster owner.
4. On Big Foreheads
“That’s why I got bangs”, Aunt Nancy says, brushing them aside. She looks at me, wiggles her head. Her bangs sweep back into place, a curtain hanging, concealing. She doesn’t have to tell me. I know what she’s thinking. I should get bangs too.
5. On Snow Globes
180 degrees. World upside down. Tree trunks where the sky should be. Feet stuck to pavement, people hanging upside down, helpless. Shimmering white, a snow storm. Zero visibility. A world that slips from its steady cradle. From Atlas’ burdened shoulders. Hits the floor with a crack.
On Friends
Alliances are made in the dark, and subsequently brought into the light. There it becomes clear. No longer uncomfortable in the dark, now that you can see, proper judgement can be made: is this individual worthy of the title “friend”. If light shines, and no virtue is found, drop them off at the bus stop. There is no need to keep the weak by your side. They will only waste you away. The virtuous though, they will strengthen you for the storm.
On Breakfast
The break from the night’s fast. The quietest meal. The smallest meal. The best way to start a good day.
On the Zone
The zone is where you go while performing. Energy is focused, and focus is laser. Everything is, and you are. You have been placed perfectly, and execution is your only task. You have been gifted it, and the only compliance for which you are obliged: use it.
On Music
The soothing sounds that we use as a backdrop to our existence. It could not be everything, but it is something. I can hear it, feel it, imitate it. It makes me move, helps me grove, and changes my attitude. It is sounds with a reason, and rhymes with some meaning.
On Believing
There needs to be a reason to believe. They say faith is lost when everything is alright. There needs to be signs clearly posted for all to see. Only then will they believe, because talk is cheap, and true patrons will only spend money on the real thing.
1. On heartbeats
Yours is too fast for the position we’re in, curled behind me like you’re magnet-stuck. I can feel it pulsing through my back. Slow down, we have nowhere to go.
2. On dullness
I smashed a window with my heel, but it was too easy. Two panes of glass splintered and split so fast, smooth. Winter air rushing in at me, my temperature plunging enough to remind me of fullness and feeling the blood pulse through to the furthest reaches of my fingers.
3. On bread
A house full of worn wood, a general layer of dust. How long will it take to be old in the way I want to be? Scrape the dough from underneath my nails and then our hands pressed together, interlocked until the oven timer dings, pulls us apart, bread crusty and golden in our mouths.
4. On pink
You’re flushed, your cheeks saturated with something I can’t mirror back at you. Today’s last light sinks lower and lower in streaks of faded rose.
5. On dark circles
In the crowded room, light inverted and wrong, so all I see are the empty places. I fill the gaps with my body, catch eyes with you and the pools of shadow hanging off your lower lashes. They pull me down heavy, get me stuck–get me out–but I can’t swim back up and now the gaps have closed, melded together into an uncrossable sea of other eyes I can’t bear to meet.
On Leo
She would play her favorite music, like Frankie Valley, and ask her passengers (as they looked out the window and pictured soaring above the telephone poles) who knew who Frankie Valley was, and if they knew that she had a crush on him as a girl. Leo would roll his face towards me, grinning, his head secured by.a seatbelt.
On Ideas
Picture a shoe. A sneaker, faded black high-top Converse Chuck Taylor All-Stars that has been worn down by pavement/grass/hard dirt. Let your mind wander and feel around where the skin of the shoe is thin and where the rubber soles are fat. Imagine holding this idea of a shoe by its laces, and feel how it would catch and spin and twirl if you flicked your wrist up and down in sudden movements, making the shoe dance like a marionette.
On Jell-O
My grandmother would drop chunks of pineapples and chunks of pears into gelatin. There they would sit, collecting the viscous ooze and letting it set into their DNA, waiting until they were filled to the brim with Jell-O-ness. Then at last they’d relax, satisfied with saccharine dreams.
On Mercury
A user shouted into the gone: “what if we made a sword from mercury? A sword of liquid metal, with all the heat sucked out so that it was a frozen husk? Would it melt when it met your skin?”
On History
Throughout history, nothing has happened. Flip through any history textbook, and you’ll turn from blank page to blank page. There is so little happening in history that they have to cut entire forests down to the blistering earth just to mush the trees into page after page of nothing.