trauma

“I’m not ready to heal,” I said as gently as I could because I was afraid how she’d respond. She nodded. “I respect that,” she said, and walked away.

I’d rather write about my friendship with Asian women first. My mother would take over, breaching the walls of these essays, until it is only her. I have some scores to settle first—with this country, with how we have been scripted. I will only say that my mother was broken then, though I don’t know how. When illness is unnamed, the blame for it is

The only way to kill a Hindsight Octopus is to release it into the wild.

Not everything floats. I am trying to learn which parts of me to let sink.

how’d all these ghosts get in my yard?

& i was still an insect scuttling over the ruins of battles i hadn’t fought.

There are many ways to hold water without being called a vase. To drink all the history until it is your only song.

call it a siren, a hungry cat, anything that’s learned to imitate a crying child to get what it needs.

Everyone wants a broken-glass girl, bought second hand. Look. The damage was already there.