I’d like to find the words
to cut right through the muck,
but when it comes to you
you know that I’m just stuck,

I ready up the blades
and soap clean my hands,
to work toward the heart
no matter where it lands—

All the things—
We said—
Will forever be dead—

But I’ll hold on—
Instead—
You’ll always live inside my head.

a glass wing kept beating
behind the wallpaper.
i fed it honey
through the seams
and called it mine.

on the third thursday,
the moon blinked out.
you spoke in echoes,
spilled mirrors
across the floor.
i swept them up barefoot.

every silence
was a string in my mouth.
i pulled it,
thinking it might unravel you.
instead, it sewed me
shut.

the garden grew
upside down.
i watered the roots
from the sky.
you wrote your name
on the underside of a cloud
and said you never meant permanence.

meanwhile,
i lived beside the sound
of an unopened door—
**** warm,
hinges aching.

you said the map burned.
i said the fire had your handwriting.

now, the bird has left the wallpaper.
it’s made of smoke and backward time.
i watch it spiral
into the somewhere
you didn’t take me.

Darkness Growing in Twilight's Desolation
An Ebony presence crossing the foggy mist
His wings unfurled will bring damnation
onto Someone I love and used to miss.

A distant dream, like a cry from the dark
The raven's shadow, an obscure forebode,
I heard from afar a dying Dog's bark,
(A minute ago, the reaper spoke.)

While a white rabbit hurries back to its hole
near the bell tower of the barren lands,
where Diamonds are extracted from the blackest coal
And miners with silver pots dig with their own hands.

I see no reflection in the golden mirror,
which makes me think that the raven is getting nearer.

I woke up early that day
but once I peeled open my eyes
realisation clouded them
as reality blinded me,

I fell asleep that day
despiration pulling me away
from the atrocities of the waking world
as I lay in bed crying and wailing,

A bit of me died with you that day
as my heart did fall apart
solemn and invisible
but I still feel you now
and know you never left
because I woke up early that day
to spend more time with you.

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.

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?