There’s a crown around your earlobes which nobody can see
And if I pushed in the right place you’d wind up like Rose Kennedy
But maybe there’d be no difference from the person I see now
The probe that’s reaching out to find a hollow in your skull
Eaten by wasps. They’re still alive, you know.

By my feet I notice coffee dregs
Drip from your eyeballs, with each trail
A garden sprouts. The hearts of roses
Stare me down, wishing me dead.
I pull out my handkerchief and wipe
Your brown sclera.

I’m hollowed out from
thorns slurping up juicy sugar, pumping venom
into my lovely bones.

Honey, are we out of yogurt?
No, the omen grants it so.
Chalk keeps oozing through our cupboard,
Are your mumbles just for show?
Pale, more pale than morning’s dough.

My outer layers are ephemeral,
Shifting from day to day
At one time, all I want is some rest
The next, to go out and play.

There’s an Annie that loves to be seen by others
Full of charm, glamour and style
This person is rare, and once coming out
Likes to stay in and hide for a while.

The scientist in me loves reason and rhyme
It gives her a means to an end.
She’s the most relaxing to stay in for a time
But fails to amuse her friends.

Emotionasia loves deep conversations
The kinds hipsters will have in college
She’s impatient, tempestuous, selfish at times
And has deep empathetic knowledge.

When I chance to change, which happens quite often
I don’t understand why I’m here.
It’s scary to see the world different each day
Both wonderful, and filled with fear.

I’m not just a disordered amalgam of traits.
I have purpose, a worldview, a home.
But when each of these traits in my change every day,
It’s hard to think much is my own.

Back when my face was curtained with bangs,
I would pick flowers, playing by the door.
You rode your stick horse toward me
rounding the bench, knocking off the fresh plums.

Together we lived in Changgan,
the two little ones without suspicion. At 14, I became wife to you,
shy glances hiding my smile.

I dipped my head toward the gloomy walls
of your thousands of gentle calls.
At 15, my expressions relaxed,
and I longed for our dust and ashes to be mingled forever.

I trusted like the one holding a pillar in a storm; why do I still climb, anticipating your visit?
At 16, my lord traveled far from home,
through the Qutang gorge and floods of Yu.

For five months we made no contact, monkeys mourning overhead.
By the doorway are your hesitant footprints, slowly growing in with moss.

The coating is deep, it cannot be swept away—the early Autumn Winds bring leaf-fall. August’s butterflies turn yellow
flying two-by-two to Western orchards.

My heart is wounded at this,
I sit anxiously and my youth fades.
Sooner or later you’ll cross down through Sanba, sending a letter in advance your return.

To reunite with you, no matter the distance—I will go all the way to Changfensha.

I am a lady.
I have flaws.
Some are my fault,
many are not.

I am a fighter
triumphing over
fears of the past and
the uncertain future.

Many who see me
will think me unbroken
and are shocked to witness
how much I have changed.

Others will mention
how glad they are seeing
that their base perception
of me is the same.

My love affair with language is ending.
===
How odd that the lonely are the hardest to spend time with.
===
Summer! Summer is here!
The one I love is leaving
It is a good thing
My thoughts can at last be free.

Goodnight
Sleep tight
Stick around another year for me
Put up with my strangeness
The occasional sameness
But branch out to others in your friendship tree

The colors in your eyes swirl through each other
Like chromatic snakes
Locked in embrace
Or perhaps a fight to the death.
Ring around the rosy;
I cannot catch my breath.
Their scales diffract my tiny face
And send me to another place
They leave me guessing
Too busy, impressing
You

Normally I progress with such confidence, I think,
    though others might not see it.
    My future, to myself, is just one rail
    but sometimes it’s the trolley problem
    where I don’t know who’s on which track,
    (who might I demolish today?)
And that was all one bullet; I’m sorry.
    (Don’t be. If I was offended, you’d know.)
But I’m a fool. You see,
I thought I knew you and know how you knew me
And my usual overconfidence led to my comfort
I honestly didn’t have it in me to doubt.
Should I embrace the may-be-waste-of-time?
I see now why before I pretended anyone could be a friend
                   (any one could be a fraid?)

Now that the cherry blossoms have burst for two days,
the branches are bare.
I thought my orchard was growing more gorgeous than it was.

When I am with you, you shall find
I undoubtably lose my mind
I hate my life, I thrash, you sneer
You do this to me every year!

The pain is like a tearing scorcher
You subject me to such deadly torture
I will not stand it. I cannot.
I must not get another shot.

If I could build a house, it'd be of teak.
I'd plant it in a basin of cement
the shingles, swirling up to pine-like peak
would push through rainclouds as they came and went.
…
And yet, my house is crumbling debris
without you there to keep me company

feels like dark chocolate on my tongue
        smooth nibs butter fruits solid   wine,   mine,
            slowing me down with a crash.
Like,
    the time loop with each instance equally delicious
in
    cream clamor of daylight, hid from yesterday’s enticements
        pinned feathers mark me
           an approved rebel. I hope
zest
    not too bitter, a pairing
       fresh taken in sharper soothing
         trappings of a recipe too small
            all I can do is say it sincerely.