She is unswerving,

imperious: a fortress --


may not move, never.

I'm a poet,
You don't know it
I stay up writing...
My experience
It's kind of morbid
Lots of things have happened...
You'd be furious,
If you knew
Every thing you've done to me
Has been published...
My blog's my news.
Every bad day,
Every good thing,
has its own place...
In my station, Online.
Since I was fourteen
I've been taunting, you.

There is a monster under my bed.
Hauting, screaming, hurting me.
It talks to me every night.
I believe it doesn't want me here.
It screams and cries, acts more like a child than me.
It smells of the bottles in the glass container.
It stumbles up the stairs.
It opens every window, let's the cold winter frost in and hopes it freezes time.
Instead, it freezes me.
I wait, behave, hope.
I stay silent so it doesn't notice I'm here.
Tomorrow it will wake me up.
Tomorrow it will attend a parent-teacher conference.
Tomorrow they will praise it.
"You did a good job raising her"
Tomorrow it will turn into my mother.
Tomorrow night, the monster returns.

Last weekend was “Parent’s” weekend at Yale. A time when parents are formally invited to visit. They have receptions and other events - but no potato-sack races (which is disappointing). My parents couldn’t come, they’ve never come to parent’s weekend, but Leong’s parents came again, from Macao, China, a 16,060-mile round trip.

There was a time when boys could tank my self-confidence with a word. When the male gaze seemed overpowering. I’d felt constantly evaluated - but I’ve evolved - somewhat. We’re going to a party. Lisa, Leong, Sunny, Anna and I - we’ve got our shine on and we’re drawing looks. Well, ok, Lisa’s drawing looks and I’m in the general frame.

Lisa sneezed, “The air quality’s bad tonight,” she announced, wiping her nose with a Kleenex.
“I don’t have any allergies,” I bragged. “Me neither,” Leong added.
“If you can breathe the air in China,” I said, “You’re golden.”
Leong laughed “Tài zhēnshí liǎo,” (Too true!) She agreed.

As we left the more street-lit part of the path, the moon, wandering in and out of the clouds, created moving shadows that peopled the darkness with phantoms. Was that impression the paranoia of fatigue? I haven’t been getting much sleep lately. Or maybe it’s October and Halloween’s just around the corner.

I was walking in the rear, nestled in the mingled scents of my roommates' perfumes that, like rare blossoms, enchanted and excited the child in me. I wasn’t paying attention, and I stubbed my toe on a misaligned sidewalk tile. Don’t you hate the gap between stubbing your toe and feeling the pain?

The first time he left,
It hurt her.

The second time he left,
It disappointed her.

The third time he left,
she expected it.

Now when people leave,
she anticipates it.

We are home, we will

wait for you, yes, they once have --


said that to me too.

When I was little, my stepfather and I would be outside, coloring the driveway with chalk or throwing a frisbee and he’d stop and say, “I’m gonna go stir your mama up.”

He’d go in the house, coming out minutes later with my mom hot on his heels, waving her arms and haranguing his retreating back. She couldn’t see the big grin on his face as he approached me, “It’s good for her heart,” he’d say, chuckling and resuming whatever we were doing, “We’ve got to keep her on her toes.” He’s a master of dolorous mischief.

Flash forward to a cold, dark, Yale, winter evening in 2023. Peter and I are in the suite’s common room. Four dorm rooms share this ‘living room’ area but we’re alone, which was rare.

I’d been reading for about an hour and I was only half done. A chemistry PSet was next. I closed my Chinese language studies book and looked up. Peter was there, sitting on the floor, leaning back on the far end of the red corduroy couch where I was sitting. His long lanky frame was curled around the book he was reading, like an awkward python.

As I watched, he plucked a mint-chocolate milkshake off the white coffee table, bringing the straw to his lips without ever taking his eyes off his book. Homework, homework, homework.
I was bored and wanted a little attention, a little fun.

“Was I your first choice?” I asked him, as he noisily slurped at the last of his milkshake.
“First choice for what?” He asked.
“To be your girlfriend,” I clarified, emphasizing the last word.

He thought for a moment, “No, I had salty love-jones for Ivy Waters in second grade. Why?”
“I don’t know, It just occurred to me to ask,” I confided. “so, why did you choose me then?”
“Well,” he said, raising his eyebrows in all, fake sincerity, “you know all the best jokes,” and with that, he went back to his milkshake (argh!).

“I know, you’re finishing your doctorate,” I said, “but you could be a flight attendant!”
Peter stopped trying to stir the last of his milkshake into a slurpable lump and froze in thought. “It’s TRUE,” I continued, “Really - you need to be flexible in your planning. I read that most physicists slave away in povertude.”

“Povertude, huh?’ He said, and resumed his mint-chocolate work - his straw making a loud “ssssuuuuusssssskkkkkkkkkk,” empty-cup air-******* sound.
“AI isn’t going to replace **** flight attendants,” I offered, as my last argument in the matter.

After a moment he asked, “You really think I could carry it off?” Putting his palm on his hip and wiggling his shoulders in a provocative shimmy.

“I KNEW you’d leave me at the FIRST opportunity,” I said, turning sharply away, pretending to ignore him - the universal cap of girlfriends everywhere - with a condensed absence of attention that, I hoped, spoke unspoken things.

Setting his milkshake down, he gave me a lecherous smile, which made me giggle, and began crawling in my direction.

“Eeek!” I shrieked, laughing, as he climbed up on the couch, “I still have homework!”

imagine reaching deep into yourself,
past any sense of doubt or regret,
and reliving what made you -you-.

saturday mornings when your dad
cut grass and expected help he didn't ask for while bacon and eggs waited
in the kitchen,

or sundays where evening cartoons robbed you, so you wished
for extra sleep before sermons
and trips to CVS.

or holidays alone because jobs
are demanding, and it won't happen
again next year, where stillness forms into repression,
fueled by discomforts, angsts,
sadness.

and it isn't until much later
that the light of your own existence
takes root, petals up toward the sun,
and chooses to flourish.