Dear beautiful reader,

How was your November?

Despite the grief and pain I’ve been processing in my poems below, it was actually such a fantabulous month for me! The clouds are finally parting. So many good omens presented themselves to me, one of which was: an unexpected, whopping $16,000(!!) settlement check from a car accident earlier this year. I was quite literally twirling and jumping in the streets! (My attorney, chuckling, on the phone: “For some reason, I can see you doing that very clearly.”)

Los Angeles had a bout of rain, but for the most part, we’ve returned to our iconic summer sunshine and it’s December! Hallelujah! (The last three years were historical amounts of torrential downpour.) And last but not least, I made a visit, with my credit card points, to see my toddler nephew, Conan, up in the Bay Area.

It was my specific request to live “a weekend in their lives,” a real-life vlog, if you will. Witnessing the transformation of my 37-year-old brother, Kevin, and my sister-in-law into doting, attentive parents was incredibly heartwarming. They also spoiled me with artisanal pastries and matcha. My fave!

I can’t help but laugh, too, thinking of me as somebody’s aunty. I’m totally your eccentric, uber woke aunty: “Don’t fall for the matrix, relentlessly believe in yourself!” Not to mention, since Conan is obsessed with garbage trucks, I have been becoming pro at drawing and painting them. While chasing him around at Trader Joe’s as he gleefully shopped with this little tiny, shopping cart, I totally felt like Paris Hilton’s security guard at Coachella, haha. Have you seen that?

Life is good!

This journey to absolutely destroying my old life (eh, it was a life worth destroying anyway) was supremely challenging, but I’ve finally been easing into a certain certainty and an inner knowing: the grays have stopped sprouting, my sleep is very deep, and I truly see my dreams— a book deal and my first exhibit— within reach. It’s so close I can almost taste it!

Most of all, I just feel it.

Oh, I’m gonna cry buckets of tears when it does… Ok. That’s it for me. Please write me! Tell me about you, you, you!
I love you,
Amy

Word count: 1,383
Pages: 7

Type II Diabetes

Umma loves those small yellow bags of peanut M&Ms
you get at the convenience store,
Melona bars from H-Mart, and
mini vanilla bean Häagen-Dazs ice cream pints
Every evening, I wince as she shoots her belly
with that insulin shot 
She’s a diabetic yet—
I watch her down synthetic sweetness 
so scrumptiously
to appease the acrid taste
of Halmoni’s tongue 
and her ancient grapefruit frown

It’s probably why, now, I myself 
don’t keep any sugar in the house.

“BFF”

Red fuzzy coat and matching opaque tights with a printed beret
You’ve been styled by someone else, it’s easy to tell
But who’s gonna tell you,
you look like you’re cosplaying Dakota Fanning again…
child star, but at least someone who knows who they are?

And ever since I left,
you look so unsure of your own beauty now
like you no longer know how to shine 
without the greatest mirrorball in your life

Like what’s the point of spinning
if I’m not there, by your side, twirling?
Like what’s the point in wholly loving
if you’re only half-heartedly 
dancing
on that dance floor?

Because some nights,
you dance with tears in your eyes

What’s it like?
Settling for a half-life.
You used to ask your mother that.
But what’s it like, 
daughtering that limitless life away?
quietly shelving those microphone fantasies
Coachella crowd craze over that nutritious R&B voice

Now you’re Maryland’s daughter
best friends forever with Mary, 
the girl you said was so deficient, 
frowned upon so many nights in a row
for chasing love in all the wrong places

You rushed to give her your old rags, 
old clothes, old everything
but you hesitated to give me 
that raggedy North Shore pajama long-sleeve
whose home is now in the bin,
just like that once-cherished
posterized portrait 
of us together,
completely shredded.

Mary holds her spotlight on you,
Maryland’s daughter become
her ultimate influencer
But who’s gonna tell you—
There ain’t no fun in being worshipped,
stripped of
being flawed and human

Maybe now you’ll finally understand 
what that feels like.

Because I guess— 
you’ve traded in the mirrorball 
for a mirror.
And I guess it’s— 
Best Friends Forever, right?

Question for the Wife

Note: this is a spoken word piece. For my premium subscribers, I actually performed it for you in an audio file down below! I highly recommend listening to it, rather reading it.

I’ve been watching you watch me
It’s been eight, almost nine, 
years now pedestaling him, 
a trophy for the longest world record
Because the first three months 
were all I had in me

He’s the most perfect, most amazing, 
most handsome, most fantabulous man you know!
You’re so, so grateful for the
bare minimum.

Broken record girl, 
we know.
But tell me—
how many people is it exactly
that you know?
And who is it, exactly, that needs all that 
convincing, girl?

“She’s a stalker!” “She’s coming for my man!!”
Why can’t I just get over psychological abuse 
before my prefrontal cortex 
ever even developed?!
It’s been six years now 
that you’ve been slinging mud at me
my subscribers have been showing me

Now, girl, remind me—
was it me or was it you
that couldn’t let it go?

And I know you’ve taken my restraint 
as restriction, all these years
But I’ve been nothing but felicitous
to be the villain in your story 
if it means, in mine,
I can sleep like a sweet, 
cherry red cherub at night

But girl, tell me—
Does it ever get tiring writing
that romantasy novel
all by yourself?
Because I haven’t wanted 
“your man” since 2016,
since our third divorce.

From across town, I heard those alarm bells,
I mean— wedding bells, ringing
Oh, I was so concerned that he’d mar you 
all the same but
how beautiful is it that—
Marrying you? 
It was actually God’s greatest benediction.

It finally chained—and choked—
an unstable dog to his yard
And not constantly breaking free, 
barking up at my damn tree
every four months
Thank God, thank God!
Girl, I really owe you one.

Strange, however—
isn’t the protagonist’s lover 
supposed to parade her as 
the most beautiful, most talented, 
smartest, kindest girl
he’s ever known?
Strange, isn’t he 
supposed to fight to 
the death for her, 
not vice versa?

Instead, it seems he’s 
deactivating his account again
after I blocked him for the 
last and final time 
this year— 

Now, tell me, girl.
Is this some sort of sick joke?

Good riddance, maybe now
he’ll stop checking up on me
while at work, shamefully nail biting
or incognito, in the bathroom, shitting,
reading this poem somehow!

By the way, girl, did I ever tell you?
He’s the reason I never post 
in real-time now.

Now girl.
You sure that marriage of yours 
reformed him,
or did it— retract, reduce, reuse him?
Is that love of his really devotion 
or is it— dutiful discipline to his own detriment
in hope of liberating exoneration?

But girl, tell me—
does it ever get tiring doing 
his dirty work for him?
He don’t box no more, 
but I’ve been dodging all your jabs
one swift step to the left
palms gently folded together
quietly standing amused, outside the ring.

Sitting at the easel, inhaling
those new heights of creation,
I swear there’s been no better entertainment
than watching you lose your breath, 
profusely sweating…
shadowboxing with a ghost.

Girl, tell me, does that ever get tiring, though?

Because girl, I tried to tell you in that letter—
In the wake of women, I said,
it’s not “Selena versus Hailey”
it’s Justin versus Justin. 
that they both deserved better.

But it’s alright, girl—
I know all those romantasy books 
you’ve been binging
have been awfully polluting
your brain:
Sure, sure, destroy me, the enemy!

Elch.

What total 1950s pathetic patriarchal 
programming
because, tell me, girl—
in what fantasy world 
do two women of color
fight over a crusty white boy,
who can’t even keep a friend?
Dystopian to me.

And not to mention, girl.
Shouldn’t the love of your life have some integrity?
“Stop, don’t attack, it isn’t the whole reality.”
Guess that’s just who he becomes— tiny little weasel—
after rejection after rejection after rejection
Consolation prize from my constant stoic departure: 
ego inflation!

Now I see you’re two years older, but strange, 
not any wiser…
I see you’ve not yet outgrown
that middle school maturity
Does it ever age you, though,
bending and twisting ever so slightly 
just so that wonderful man of yours 
can step and reach a little higher?

Near decade of healthy, stable, oozing love
increased sexual stagnation
Because girl, I know it’s been eons 
since that bedroom of yours 
has seen more than 
some forehead kisses

He does seem, however, quite fucked 
in the head, still.

And girl, is it possible—
that you might just hate yourself 
more than I ever did?

After all, it sure is a long, long life…
Huh, just a question for the wife.

Serial Monogamist

6AM daily wake-up time, vital signs, roll call.
Shared room, morning meditation on these institutional beige sheets
With a silver spoon, he sits at the table, playing with the breakfast peas of her heart.
Over his shoulder, the windows, the ones you can’t fully open,
hint at another cloudless gorgeous day in the Texas heat
He sighs, he could go for a walk, but it’s not the same as un-fenced hike.
So he lifts the weight of his murky past in the communal exercise room.
2PM group therapy, we’re not really strangers, they say.
Then they have dinner, broccoli, grilled chicken, and rice.
He’s got a craving— Korean sweet marinated short ribs and Taiwanese boba milk tea.
“But this, this is better for me.” “Plus, it doesn’t taste so bad.”
Besides, the drug dealer, on Hobart Blvd. and Alvern St., the one who delivers a wild high,
she’s gone, long moved on, an artist and a poet now.
He reads a non-fiction book, watches some evening sports. Then light outs by 9PM.
Some days, he really believes it. “This place has done so much for me.”
We’ve got endless TV, nurses at the ready, and tentative laughter, like a doting wife.
But other days, the panic of a withdrawal sets in, the life of a junkie awaits.
Then he breathes and remembers, “I’m getting better.” “I’m getting better.”
“I couldn’t have done it without this place.”
“I owe her so much.”
He forms a damp smile and a lust-less wink, and thinks:
“I could leave, but I guess I’ll stay.”

Listen to “Question for the Wife:”

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