In a vivid dream I beheld (held) you, as I had for weeks.
Your solemn eyes peered at me, perpetually seeking
answers that elude me still. No goodbyes were uttered,
or perhaps they drowned in the fair company of regret

One year prior, a false fatherly figure had towered over me
gleefully binding me with honeyed words and a dark
fortuneteller's bemused smile, haughty in his prophecy
that the little bump below my palm meant nothing, really

The light in my eyes is already fading; even now
I tread lightly, shrinking from cold condemnation
seeking out half-truths in the cavity left behind
by you, quiet fawn, unable to witness the morning dew

On this day celebrating
or reproaching love, I can only
recall each year you were still here,
clutching a fragrant bouquet for mom

never mind the allergies that flared
even as she, beaming, placed each
one in the dark green sturdy vase
certain to hold the life within

Now she sits in the gloom
of a room that is too cold, empty
nester forced to befriend the shadows
and suppress the urge to burrow

into small cracks, senses heightened
with the absence of those fragrant
bouquets that never failed to remind her of the fullness of home, of you

I did not leave the desert unchanged.
The heat shimmered as if reminding me that all I had beheld was a mirage, tempting as it was to grasp it tightly
in my palm.

The rumble of the charge still echoed
in my mind, my spirit fully awakened, body upright now. So many decades
of being bent and not realizing it.
My vision shifted

to the impossible becoming my reality.
The warrior women who spoke life over me, poised and unwavering
as those with wisdom often are.
Their eyes peered deeply into mine

and the dry bones were made flesh anew. Somewhere in the distance,
the little girl I once was (who had fought so fiercely to procure
my safety) waved at me

one final time. Thank you, dear
little one, for being there when I felt like I had nothing else left. You no longer have to spring to my rescue.
I can handle my battles now,

knowing that the ultimate victory
is mine through Him who strengthens me. As I left the desert, I didn't look back. I was free. And so was she. Somehow, it was enough.

I had become acquainted
with unseeing eyes that still saw
too much. The cloister of a cocoon
meant to preserve all that remained

after the fire coursed through, crying.
The heaviness of stories I had clung to
like the hand of a parent who had
already slipped away and failed

to realize the child who saw beyond
the mirage, who hoped against hope
for even an artificial light to provide
warmth, to somehow be unveiled

as the source to begin with. Was I still
wandering into a borrowed tomb,
unable to discern these times, seasons
that ushered in the fragile new growth

when all I'd known was decay? Carry
that weight and leave the shell. Let
the molten fragments be found
by the next unsuspecting stranger

eagerly awaiting new rains. I had been
steeped too long in the deluge of death
only to shrink from the only true light
that could heal those deepest parts

of my being, of those stories I wished
weren't mine to hold. Still, the flicker illuminated all they had wanted to keep me from knowing all along.

I waited alone in the sterile room
for the surgery, too stunned to even

consider the word ‘goodbye’. Instead, my legs
shivered against the stirrups, as I prayed

hard for a miracle, for a giant "aha!
Just kidding!" moment from the expanding

universe that would never be large
enough to hold space for you. Pity

I received from the ones closest to me,
words murmured to soothe. Yes, I was

grateful — still, in the cloying silence
that crept in months later, I realized:

I alone was left to somehow trudge through
the thick muck of this loss. They expected me

to swim and rise above, and I did, all the while
hoping the currents would pull me under. How

could anyone else truly know what it's like
when your very own body becomes a thief

who turns         hateful           against you,
prolific cells with cold fury driving your demise

to ****** up the very thing
you wanted more than life itself?

what I remember: a country road, your wild
will to live far beyond the ordinary, the cold way

you darkened your eyes, cutting as people
often do with whatever they long to do

away with: that last meal with some specter
from your past, the sharp glance burning

one or another 'almost' lover. Now, the only
wild seedlings in my life are in my garden —

they lay dormant, awaiting the moment I sprinkle
a few precious droplets from my favorite teapot,

regret slipping into the cracked earth again.
There is no victor that emerges. All is silent.

stumbling into the main hall
in my stained hospital gown,
my feet covered by those socks
with the grips, my ******* swollen

beyond measure, rock hard for lack
of expression. Eyes that saw me
but didn't question me. My growing
panic when I missed turning in

yet another food option card. Three
missed meals when my body needed
the nourishment more than ever.

The pills they prescribed to placate.
The kindly old man, his lip tremors
and teeth stained yellow, who freely
extended his friendship, who called me comrade. My exhaustion,

my deprivation of sleep and food. Of my right mind. The way I laid my head on the lunch table, asking my new friend if he could watch over me

as I slept, nightmares and demons
finally staved for some indeterminate
amount of time. How everyone there
let me call my mom over and over again, on the precious shared

hall phone. The way I was starved, thinking I would die there. The little card I drew, artwork at its finest, not knowing what reality was anymore.

How I recalled my own father being in a similar mental institution after his own suicide attempt. How he was saved. How I was.

I slip from the low thrum of this dream-
state on the first dawn of a new year, ponder

my dead father's visit: his robust body a vision
of health once more, not a glimmer of glioblastoma

poised to invade his cells, to proliferate
loss in the strange sanctuary of his mind.

Time exists in the in-between, and I feel it
threaten to slip away even as he solemnly coos,

cradles a crying infant I know to be mine; could it
possibly be a sign that this one will finally be

viable? Perhaps this time it could stay, not eye the exit,
entirely too eager to be carried away with the receding tide

I know so well. For once, I will myself to feel it all
fully, a foreign freedom gently nudging me to revel

in each flicker of hope before the unfolding of another
sterile, somber era. I resolve not to think of its high walls

that cloister at first, then eagerly enfold me in a cold,
colorless cocoon. I pause in lemony light as my eyes

adjust to the still shadow of an eclipsed unknowing, at last
allowing the unfamiliar dew of peace to settle upon me

The morning after
we told my mother
she would become
a first-time grandmother,

she sat alone in the garden
relaxing in the early morning sun,
craned her neck up at the huge tree
and spied a feisty pair of magpies

flitting about in a figure 8 — they squawked
out their monastic chants with abandon,
guarded their muddied little nest
tucked away in the groove

of a high branch. She froze,
eyes wide in a bewildered trance
as she suddenly recalled her own
mother so long ago, behind her

braiding my mother's thick hair,
her gentle voice murmuring about
the songs of magpies symbolizing
good news when you need it the most

My mother's smile was tremulous as she sat
in her garden, shrouded by the sweet incense
of memory, palms pressed together to ponder
all the ways we press on towards the light

magnolia’s cream-mottled cheek
   marking yet another bygone era
   plunked into the abyss as sorrow
   burrows into us, roots that become

our prisons / our refuge, the delirious
journey into what we've come
     to recognize as our shadow selves'
   last fragments of a fallen season

that last slanted sunset reflected off the lake
hinting with its brilliance at what we simply
could not admit to ourselves. The expanding
distance between us we hide in and seek thereafter

I read of your passing and paused mid-bite.
The world seemed to grow colder, but you knew
it was time to begin your next adventure, one
far beyond this familiar world we had shared.

Scientist — no, pioneering champion —  
in the fight against cancer and diabetes,
you were humble even in your brilliance.
A giant among men, a heart greater still.

I can only think of each time you passed
me in the hallway, your shy smile luminous
even as you ducked past me as if afraid
I might start speaking about what we had both

lost so long ago. You had always been my late dad’s
favorite boss, and I remember the thoughtful albeit brief
email you sent me when the cancer took him, expressing
your sorrow that a great scientist and fellow man had left

this cruel world far too soon. Now you join him
and I picture the two of you, both clad in white lab coats
colliding in an awkward embrace, eager to update one another
on all that the other had missed from the other side.

Growing weary on the road,
respite seemingly out of grasp, wild
eyes cast their silver-yellow sullen

warning to the ground below as we crane
our twisted necks up: a meager offering
to the ones who walked the path before

Horned owl, languid head turning, collects
our astonished gasps like cold gleaming
rubies once tossed into a ravine or river —

nearby, the fog rolls in: curious bystander
ever intent on pulling the heavy curtain aside
to devour the last tasty morsels in the thrill

of a bygone moment — reckless and ripe
with the bloodstains of youth, the hunger
departing and returning in an instant

In a few months, I would become a mother
myself. Drove to her home, eager to spend
the day with my own mother. Tried to ignore
the deepening crevices in her face, arthritic

knuckles that still pounded dough to make
dumplings for others. Late afternoon, we perched
upon her kitchen stools, sipped chrysanthemum tea.
Her voice was quiet as she recalled leaving her dear mother

decades ago, toddler on hip, for a new life overseas. An unspoken goodbye that shimmered like silk between them. Sorrow distorted her face, the words strangled in her throat: Lao Lao, your grandma, had shuffled from room to room, stunned into silence, the roar of this impending

distance already drowning out my pleas for her to somehow understand. I was leaving her, perhaps forever. Her fingers had trembled as she gifted me a parcel containing two homemade qipao dresses and three tiny outfits for you –
a toddler who would grow up without ever knowing her grandma.

I watched my mom as she sat in her kitchen, shoulders slumped.
I could see how this loss broke something in her.  Still, I made
no move to embrace her. Apathy bloomed in my folded arms
and shifty eyes, a feeble attempt to shield myself

from her palpable pain. Didn’t realize that I would be steeped in it
a mere few months later. Didn’t quite know then how to measure the distance between these wounded souls spinning out, unsure
of which direction was ‘home’ and unable to turn back.

In this tale of three mothers, I now see the steadfast thread
of Your handiwork stitching together burdened hearts
spanning seas, lands, the spaces between. It was Your grace
that carried us — and only with You, did we each learn surrender.

Her very first one, sitting in her high chair,
mouth stained with strawberry juice —
with such ease and joy, it caught me

by surprise. Good job, she says again,
smiling, her little thumb peeking out from that
tight little fist. All I had done was declare

the color of my shirt — red. She turns
to finish eating, already distracted by the animated
music video on the screen. Just the two of us

having breakfast, I savor this simple moment.
When had I learned to withhold praise?
To refuse to acknowledge others

for tackling another day, knowing
that it took everything in them just to let
themselves see & be seen // hold & be held?

You once spoke about the heart of a child –
how we all must become like children to see,
to hear, to truly receive. Help me remember.

In the dim half-light turned blue, she gazes
up at the bees who’ve trapped themselves
in her skylight, the slow hum of tired wings
beating against fat, desperate bodies.

A lone fly flits about up there, also, at ease
in its unbelonging. The bees circle
in growing anxiety, then slow to a crawl.
My throat tightens as I see my mother

grab the flyswatter. Don’t, I whisper,
but her tiny frame is already climbing up
on the kitchen table, her focus unwavering.
Oh, I won’t **** them, she grins,

her arm extending the fly swatter high,
a meager offering swathed in good cheer.
I rush over to steady her body to keep her
from tipping over in this precarious pursuit.

She waves away my offer to trade places
with her. You’re very pregnant, she says,
and her tone tells me there is no arguing
with her. My mother murmurs in Mandarin

to the agitated creatures, calling them
beautiful, letting them know she sees them,
sees how they’ve been up there for far too long
swelling with exhaustion and mistrust.

The first bee slowly climbs onto the swatter
as if entranced by her sweet, clear voice.
She hands me the swatter, and I fumble
with the backyard door, nervously

carrying it into her garden. I place the bee atop
one of my mother’s flowerbeds. It clings
to a sunset-orange bud, and I make my way
back inside. In silence, we retrieve, hand off,

and rehome each bee until all eight are
safely in the garden. Not one makes
any move to leave, content to simply rest
a while, to savor the fresh air, to revel

in the sacred space my mother holds
for every being she meets. In the fading light,
I watch her linger in the bare kitchen, a shadow
of a smile gracing her face. If only

they could see her in this light. Would anything
change? Or would she still merely be the next subway
push, another fatal stabbing as she returns home,
one more life snuffed out in a now-empty nail salon?

I sank into the familiar couch — tense, prepared
for chastisement. I was met with warmth, a calm
reassurance that the events that had transpired

all served a greater purpose. A necessary unraveling.
Arriving at the end of myself at last. Could I salvage
a sense of normalcy? Did I want to? Things had shattered

beyond repair. What was I meant to hold onto? Discard?
Regeneration seemed an unattainable summit not meant for me.
As if reading my mind, my therapist spoke, his words of truth

stirring my spirit in a way my mind could not fathom.
When you experience that fear, go back to that place of surrender.
No more and no less. In silence, we sat in that dim sanctuary

for some time, the drone of the cars outside a sharp reminder
that I was still alive. I had people on my side who did not turn
their eyes away from my fragmented state of being. I spoke now

of the gradient colors of maples across the street. A brilliant hue.
My tone was flat, but it was still an observation made
with intact faculties.. Yes, that’s it. Keep that awareness. My therapist
nodded his encouragement. This is good. You’re able to focus, to recognize
beauty in the mundane. Keep going. Somehow, this simple statement
imbued me with the resolve to continue. My voice wavered

as I recalled how I saw my entire life flash before my eyes  
like a cruel cliché. How I was swept up into some
parallel dimension. One that was so much more real than this

world I’d been immersed in. You need to write it all down. At this point,
you may not be able to differentiate which parts truly happened and which parts
were illusions. So you’ll need to capture it all. His words rang true, and yet —

how could I bring myself to experience this once more,
to solidify what had happened to me and what I was still
moving through? Something in me knew that he was connecting it

all back to something much bigger than either of us. Something
or Someone present through it all. A silent witness who held the only
key that would set me free. The Truth that still waited patiently for me.

by images of a home
he once knew, destroyed —
the deconstructed fox hole
now a pile of sticks and stones
patiently waiting for the howl
of a broken man so desperate
to revive or rebuild something
not as revolting as it once was.

Somewhere in the distance,
an owl or mourning dove practices
cutting the space with its melancholy
melody, the refrain at once familiar
and strange, echoing a time
between time, nestled
in the crook of calamity.

I calmly take it all in, content
to watch the slow unraveling
of a life that isn't mine, one
or two worlds apart yet close
enough for me to realize

how it, too, yearns for another realm,
for a chance to burn their dead,
to be revived by the only song
desperate enough to crawl
back to the very place
that had once destroyed it.

I come from the cracked sidewalks of Chi-town, stoops
where we sat baking in blistering sun, listening
for the bells of the bicycles, so bold & eager for change
we could plop on the counter of the corner store.

In the constant drone of the deli, Italian grandpas
convened in their drab plaid, pressed khakis — coursing
the quiet confidence that comes from living that life
in the fast lane, simmering to a peace that permeates
each measured step. The bowls of minestrone soup
to warm their old bones: dead dreams reigniting.

I come from the family that never had anything
to own — but still didn’t allow me to go hungry.
I come from a steaming plate of sizzling
homemade dumplings, each juicy morsel
containing a mother’s fierce love for family.

I come from a long line of trauma responses
and the healing that only comes from truly creating.
I come from a great-grandmother, a grandmother,
a mother that poured out even when the jagged pieces
cut up our throats coming up. I come from having

lost my entire mind, frenzied forces pushing
my body up against a cold psych wall, no escape
in sight for me. I come from the guilt I'd held
for far too long, for missing the entire first
month of my daughter's life on this earth
when I couldn't even take care of myself.

Somewhere in the midst of coming to the end
of myself, I found You. You had never left.
I came home, battered and so broken, and You
enveloped me in Your healing Light. Selah.  



I’m walking in restoration, deep restoration,
a coursing river engorged with living water.
I finally allow myself to be fully immersed
in the wellspring that never runs dry. And there, fully
surrendered in the depths, I find that I can finally breathe.