darling,
       you're beautiful.
                      but not in the way most
                             people see
                      in the way your eyes blend
                             from brown to green
                and the way your freckles scatter
                             along your face
             and how more beautiful can you be
                      when your eyes light up
                                your smile appears
                                        & laughter springs
                                            out of your chest
                                   what a beauty you are
                             special, like the stars

on this new moon satellite day
lunacy seems ebbed to zero

circle light perimeter fading grey
challenged peripherals

i have anticipated one hundred percent
only wild surprises

cross-tie co-synergetic
flash miracle

does that loop you in?

O new moon
with not one iota of moonlight

playful monkey
shining down

I like the way your words taste
not nearly copacetic daffodils
but a boisterous bouquet of
letters tied so neatly
so crisply
that I dare not close my ears
even just for a second
because a time without you in my mind
is one I'd rather leave behind

Love is a social construct. That isn’t to say you don’t feel it. A decades-old concept of romance has been shoved down your throat since childhood.

When you’re with someone and it’s real, you know it. Real relationships aren’t stereotypical; if your significant other really knows you, they will find better ways to cherish you than roses and chocolates. Real relationships are built from two separate personalities. They’re custom-made. Real relationships don’t fit into a box, so why do we keep insisting there’s only one way to “love?”

No one’s definition of love is the same– no one feels love the same way. Yet, in a conversation about it, you think you’re on the same page. I think this respective feeling transcends that word. I think it’s sad that we all try to express our own separate, unique feeling with the same three words.

I never really felt as if
my mother had it all together.  
Her torch was
a brittle twig she couldn’t keep lit,
never enough stick to burn bright,
but just enough tip
for random flare-ups
violently fueled by
nobody knew what.

Her lack of light meant
she could not be trusted,
and her strained attempts at
love and affection felt like
a dream where
everyone’s speaking Japanese.

Her marriage to my father was
the modern day equivalent
of an interracial same *** marriage,
Catholics and Protestants
weren't supposed to mix,
and a toothless trumpet player
with an alcoholic bent
shouldn’t have lasted the honeymoon
with a spoiled, sheltered oldest child.

But father made it seem as if
they had it all together,
at least in public.
At home it was different,
he passed through our lives
like the winter wind,
everybody scrambling for cover
when he showed up.

He slept at odd hours
and worked and drank
and drank and worked,
blowing quickly from one
to the other, 
never standing still long enough
to notice the demons at his heals,
the demons that took forever to catch him,

but not mother.
They caught her when I was quite young.
I could see them in her eyes
from a very early age and
father could see them too,
but he did nothing
to protect her.

They’ve been together
over 60 years now, overrun by what
I would call a thick purple nothingness –
an eerie, detached existence within
the smothering cadence of monotony,
yet somehow, unbelievably,
they still have hope.

Hope for God knows what

all they have is their
unspoken hatred of each
wrapped up in a make believe
so strong and lived so long
that their demons are now
a huge white elephant
lounging about the house
loosening their bed screws,
pounding on the bed springs,
moving through the vents
and interfering with
the reception of Catholic radio.

You might call it insanity,

I say everything that
once mattered to them is lost,
yet again,
they still have hope.

Meanwhile
we overachieving children
suffer our own maladies,
a misfit bunch of
dysfunctional lovers running so fast
we’ll be 80 before the demons catch us.

But who am I kidding?
From father to mother to me,
their demons have been my closest friends
as long as I can remember,

ever since the first day
I saw them in her eyes.

I lay awake watching you sleep
Imagining your dreams and what they may be.
Sleep is foreign
For that I'm deprived
And alone I lay
As my eyes meet the darkness that surrounds me and this room.
My mind wonders too often
And often negative energy sets in
As my thoughts stammer
My head begins to ache
There lies why I'm here
Why I'm awake
My heart is pained and bodies cold
Detached from normality
That of solomn
That of somber
..
as you slumber tucked neatly in the warmth of your covers.

I'm here alone.. abandoned with my absurdity
As my eyes swell from tears
That are formed from my many fears
As they stream as the flow.. my eyes have no choice but just to shut
Silently exhausting what's left from a dreary day only to surrender myself off to what's hoped to be a deep sleep as I cradle myself
Alone I really am..

© Jenn Linh

i don’t count aloud anymore.
i can't stand to hear your name,
such a common word.
it doesn't matter the context-
i still go quiet every time.

i used to pick up pennies, called them lucky.
i remember picking up a few
on our way back to your place.
nowadays i don't give them a second glance.
it's not their worth i've forgotten.

they say one is the loneliest number.
is that why you did it?
because you felt you’d earned it
after all this time being by yourself--
that you deserved it?
what about me,
did i?

i remember exactly what i wore that day:
short shorts, a big baggy t shirt.
i haven't worn those shoes since (and i so loved them).
they were these expensive purple velvet platforms;
i'd actually had to beg my mother to buy them for me.
"you better wear them", she warned.
that day i went home with you was
the first time i'd ever worn those shoes.
and the last.
sorry mom.