Poetry

Author's Note: This poem was inspired by a hard moment in my life. It seem like the darkest point but I was able to push through and find a glimpse of light.

Death.

A monster.

Something selfish that steals the light out of young, and old.

A curse.

A plague.

A horrid twisted thing, and it is.

But

Death is not unlike an ocean’s tides, both confident and timid.

Tides that rise up with certainty, bringing forth treasures.

Bits of sparkle, that a clever eye can spot and cherish.

But

Death can also be blind, fearful.

The tides pull back from watchful eyes, hiding the shine of treasures.

Treasures hidden once more, unable to be cherished, taken care of.

Death.

It is both sun and moon.

A bendable, blendable, fact.

Death can be bright as day.

Right?

An old soul passing, a meeting of time.

There is hurt, of course, but also

Things do come to an end, don’t they?

Death could be night.

A dark and fearful passing of a young and hurt soul.

But there is a moon at night.

No?

If not the moon, then stars

Or, even street lights.

The light.

The chance.

That the hurt, young soul’s passing,

Could be, perhaps, the smallest glimmer of light.

Hope for the soul’s happiness in new life

They say with life comes death,

So, with death must come life.

Death, it’s fact.

Maybe it’s forced, stiff, dark, unappealing.

Or, is death the small glimmer in the tide, in the darkest of nights?

That one treasure that wasn’t pulled down by the tide’s fear.

Perhaps even, one that was seen and cherished.

Or the shard of light from the moon, the stars, or even streetlights.

Light.

Refusing to be snuffed out and suffocated by the dark.

By the ill spoken words about death.

What is death?

Horrid?

Cruel?

Dark?

Selfish?

Death, just, is.

Death, is just, fact.

Author's Note: This is a poem about moving on and having to leave parts of yourself behind. I wrote this last year when my friends were graduating and now that I am, the idea behind my poem somehow seems foreign to me. Unfortunately, John Mayer was a large inspiration for this as well.

There’s another version of you who resides deep inside my head, hidden away in the prefrontal cortex, along with the rest of my hopeless dreams and anxieties

This is where my dead dog is, the one with cancer and lumps that we used to walk together afterwards and you’d rub his head and he’d close his eyes because he really was a good boy

Now, i am alone and i walk in the summertime up the hill and down, all the while shedding my clothes like inhibitions to the black asphalt behind me

I think you’d remember liking that boy because he was cute and said nice things to you and liked looking and you were the same as I’ve always been and in that way, a silly, soft girl

But then again, I/you slips in and out of consciousness as the hippocampus struggles to recall basic facts and the specific events of that night, or any night really, and your father asks

Remember, remember i need you to think back and recall, state the facts of the case in case it and case it just like the joint was you were smoking in the twilight dwindling campfire to hide the scent

I was a good girl, you are a good girl, i am a good girl, you were a good girl so you wear white to graduation and know that you will never see any of them again and you are pleased

You, we were someone else before, I was someone else before until it was someone i do not know and someone that sits at the very bottom of the pool in one of those pink swimsuits

Pretending maybe to be drowning so some lifeguard can save you and you can be picked up, dripping and held as one last hurrah, memory, some great thing in all of it

(Now play Pomp and Circumstance)

Autor's Note: This is a poem about how my difficulties with expressing emotion have affected me as a person, and how crippling it can be to bottle up your feelings. I hope my poems can not only express me, but also be meaningful to other people who can relate. 

What would it be like if you couldn’t cry,

If all of the charming was only on the outside?

The moment the clock turns to twelve you run away,

Afraid someone will see you when your ball gown becomes frayed.

I’ve dropped a few little hints here and there. 

They found my missing shoe,

And when they saw the sparkling glass

Thought I was perfect too.

I will confess, I tried my best 

To keep up the facade,

To look like I was happiest 

When, in fact, I was not.

I laugh at people’s pain

And they think that I can’t feel it. 

But for me the real pain

Is the fact that I can’t show it.

It’s not that I’m afraid of what will happen if they see,

After all, this servant life is just what makes me free.

The gown is too uncomfortable; I’d rather be in rags.

But no one can attend the ball unless their looks impress.

Finally, when it gets too late,

I run out in a flash.

And now that no one’s here to see, 

The servant girl is back.

-crimsyn

In the quarry 

Chopped up stone scatters in pieces 

Dull hammers sing their woes 

The work never ends 

Bleak emptiness, 

Defined as a collarbone 

The quarry man gnaws on the rock 

Reducing the quarry to rubble 

Until the rubble is now his quarry 

His eyes breathe slowly 

Dust crawling up the fingertips 

One hand stays limp 

The other scrapes against the rock

The pit falls deeper 

White rock erodes and crumbles 

Where does this hole lead, 

But down? 

Author's Note: This is a poem I wrote to express my personal struggles with eating disorders over the last few years. I was in a very dark place when I wrote it, and not much of the poem has been changed since it was originally written—I intentionally used nonuniform punctuation throughout the poem to express feelings that the words themselves couldn't capture, and decided it best to leave it that way, as I feel it resonates with me more. However you interpret this poem, I hope it is able to make you feel like you're not alone in your struggles, it just takes everyone a lot to speak out about them, which I am ready to do now.

i have a friend

who smiles at me and says,

“You’re safe,”

and i feel safe.

i have a friend

who gives me confidence, saying

“You’ll be great!”

and i know i’ll be great.

i have a friend 

who motivates me and says,

“Just a little more...”

and i push through the pain.

my friend is in my head—

has always been,

and always will be.

my friend is good to me,

my friend looks out for my safety.

my friend, my friend, my friend,

my friend wants to protect me—

keep me from all harm,

tell me i’m perfect at all costs.

my friend encourages me

to take it one step further

and that it’ll be okay, no matter what.

my friend is always there,

will always be around for me.

i know that my friend cares for me.

my friend…

“It’s me, your Other friend…”

Another friend inside of me

Who makes me feel like I can’t breathe.

I don’t like this new presence

Who tells me what to do.

My Other friend punishes me.

My Other friend’s upset with me

Nearly every time

My Other friend crawls out 

In my mind.

My Other friend

Sounds like a doctor.

The doctor that 

Gives me checkups twice a week

To make sure I’m over 95.

But no! I’m fine!

This is why

You’re no friend of mine!

but then my stomach lurches

and i smile to push it away;

nobody can know about this,

no one, that is, except for my friend

who will reassure me

that it’s okay and

that i’ll be okay and

that when i see my weight

i’ll smile for real this time.

but my Other friend is lurking, 

always is, well, almost always.

and now my Other friend

is telling me

“I hate your ways—

It’s all inside your head,”

Well I hate you, Other friend.

And you as well, are inside my head.

From now on, it’s a 

Constant battle of my two friends

And I’m the one 

Controlling both of them.

My Other friend is 

Forcing me to eat

And to not repeat

The cycle.

My Other friend is stern with me,

And isn’t loving;

My Other friend is likely going to

Rip off the arm of my friend

Because of my Other friend’s rage 

And devotion.

My friend is sustaining me,

My Other friend is pulling

So hard, my friend will lose

Another arm, and

Sit there feeling helpless

While my Other friend does harm.

it’s my job to make my 

Other friend heard.

but i don’t want that.

i want them to live together

in harmony

and peace inside of me,

but it can’t be,

and only one may remain.

Snapped back to reality,

Everyone’s telling me

To heed my Other friend’s advice

And let another drop dead.

But I don’t want to make the choice,

So I follow the push and pull

That I can no longer control.

if only i had a Friend who could

really save me.

Author's Note: A short 8-line poem of 2 quatrains about rain. Inspired by a particular song and the quote in the description (Title is "con lentitud poderosa", if you want to listen). I chose to make it based on rain simply because it flowed well (no pun intended). Also, it's kind of ambiguous about the meaning, so it can be as deep or shallow as the reader perceives it to be (again, no pun intended). I mostly just did this in itself for fun.

Quickly down a window, all the droplets go

Soon, through some cataract, they all may flow

Each leaving the other, mere moments after having met

What came first, the mighty river or the tiny rivulet?

Rain clouds know no boundaries, no borders, no wall

Endlessly floating, aimlessly, over all

Someday again, for now taking rest;

the rain will fall once more, yet with powerful slowness.

It was a pink house

A faded flamingo color

Paint chipped and peeling

It had a rotting roof

A fig tree in the front yard

And a pear one in back

A sun bleached outdoor dining table

That neighbored a rusting blue bike 

Inside the house were discolored rugs

Miss matched furniture

Three bedrooms

Two and a half baths

Popcorn textured ceilings

It was a quiet place

The noise had left long ago

Along with the memories

Gone as far as over borders 

And as near as a few blocks away

Each had returned eventually

Unhappy to be back

And yet in no hurry to leave

Almost as if they couldn’t

Like it was home or something

They were older now

Wrinkled

More prickly

No longer as sweet as the fruit that grew there

The fruit

That was made of the same kind of something

It too had roots here in this place 

Every year the memories made jam of the pears and ate the figs candied 

Or with their oatmeal

The fruit filled its purpose with its sweetness 

Grew back each year like clockwork

So that it would be there, in some form, for the next Summer and

Fall and

Winter and  

Spring 

The memories became worn with time 

Ending in bent backs and tired hands and smile lines

They grew slow and lived fast and dissipated in a second, in the blink of an eye, in a flash of 

sunlight 

They became lost

The laughter of children was leached from the living room walls

The hecticness of a weekday morning finally exited the bathrooms

The face-reddening simmer of anger excused itself from the table

The happy chaos of holiday cooking was wiped off the counter for the last time

It was a quiet home

Author's Note: This poem is inspired by our family home in Salinas. At one point my mother and all her four of her siblings grew up there with my grandmother. Eventually they all went away for college or moved to different cities or bought there own houses but they each took turns coming back to fill the empty spaces.

The first moths fall like snow to the ground, 

Like snow in early september

Early returning to dirt underfoot, 

Torn apart amongst smears of their sisters.

Some innate need to change, to grow

Early turned them to cocoon

And thus early they were to hatch,

And too young to live alone, they died.

I cried the first time I stepped on an oakworm;

I didn’t know it’s name, but I knew

I had killed it

And something innocent and beautiful

Was gone because of me.
I don’t think I ever would have guessed

That I was an oakworm too

Author's Note: This is a collection of short poems that I wrote for the identity project assignment in English. In order, the titles are: mǎyǐ, lost in assimilation, tāng yuán, like mother, like daughter, and the power of ignorance. I grapple different aspects of my identity/experiences in each of my poems. 

mǎyǐ

When I was little, I wondered why I had so many marks

scattered across my skin like constellations.

Mom called them mǎyǐ, our little ants

from my Aagong

from her.

I looked different from the other girls, who had pale skin and no marks.

“Why do you have so many dots on your face?”

If only I could scrape them off until my skin shines clean

clean of looking different, clean of being half-Taiwanese.

Today I look in the mirror

I see my mǎyǐ

that I share with my Aagong, with my mom.

I admire the constellations that tell my grandfather’s story.

I see his dark and weathered skin, from years under the hot sun

working tirelessly so I won’t have to bear the same life.

My skin tells my grandfather’s story, and my story too.

I am beautiful.

lost in assimilation

My fingers brace against the chopsticks as I struggle to pick up my food.

“There goes your asian card.”

I’m not sure if I had it in the first place.

My brain sorts through a jumble of English, Spanish, and Mandarin words.

I cringe as the words finally fall out of my mouth.

I can tell in their smiles that it sounds wrong, but they’re still proud.

Shame curdles up inside my stomach.

I cling onto the shreds of Taiwanese culture that I have left.

I desperately shelter the fragile embers of my identity 

from the white-washed winds of our country.

Time passes with the wind, 

carrying my grandparents’ culture with it.

The embers grow faint, lost in assimilation

an echo of the flames they should’ve been.

tāng yuán

Dry, hot air clings to my skin

I listen to the quiet whir of my bike as the world passes by

Endless green lawns blur together

Leaves rustle above as they dance in the summer wind

My grandparents smile at me, 

their eyes creasing at the corners

their soft wrinkled hands holding mine

I know that I am home.

We gather around the small round table

Aagong stretches out the ball of dough for tāng yuán

White flour covers my hands as we roll the dough into small shapes

I can smell the sharp ginger and the sweet browned sugar of my childhood

The house of shouts and loneliness lurks in the back of my mind

waiting for me to return

to steal my happiness from me once more

I sip and chew our tāng yuán

The comforting soup embraces me with the warmth of being together

embracing me with everything I have always longed for

I am home.

like mother, like daughter

My mom hugs me once more before driving away.

During those years, she’d leave for work from Tuesday to Thursday.

When she returned, my dad would leave for a hotel

until she left for work the next week.

During those three days with my dad, I became her.

All of the anger and resentment meant for her was given to me.

As if he saw the same round face

wide nose

upturned eyes 

To him,

we looked the same

we were the same

therefore he could treat us the same.

Like mother, like daughter.

the power of ignorance

I’m lucky that I can’t relate to my mom

because of my lighter skin, lighter hair, lighter eyes

because I grew up in a time when racism wasn’t acceptable.

I never once had to hear,

“Where are you really from?”

“I visited Japan once!”

“I love Oriental culture.”

I don’t have to uncomfortably stand there and be polite.

I don’t have to smile and nod at their ignorance.

I thought that the worst racism my family could face were stereotypes.

Until hateful words were heard by ignorant ears

assumptions, once harmless, now violent.

One anti-Asian hate crime 

after another

so many that they stopped making headlines.

Week after week, the shock subsides

as the weight on my shoulders grows heavier.

I worry about my grandparents

I worry about my mom

I can’t imagine.

Yet I am forced to 

when people that look like me are beaten to death.