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Coda: “Broken Words,” A Poem
Praise to the sweltering, yet comforting summers in Taipei, where the unrelenting humidity clings to my skin. Far into the night, my family and I walk through the brightly lit, crowded rows of the Night Market, bustling with the shouts of street vendors, fragrant with stinky tofu and Taiwanese sausages. The real city that never sleeps—you can get your hair done at midnight, grab food or drinks from a “seven[1],” watch movies in the theater until 3am, or sing at karaoke bars. My cousins send over a basket filled with lian wu[2] and bala.[3] Behind the doors of our family home silence prevails, where I stumble over my words in…
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Six Stills, A Memoir
The following pages are excerpts of the first and fifth section from my memoir project for my Milton course. Using Milton’s writings as a guide, I analyze the “stills” of my relationship with my father, faith, and previous romantic relationships. I. “Muddy Pool” of the Past Stills I didn’t know how much I needed John Milton until now. My father has always been the patriarch looming over our family—commanding respect even though he never extended the same to his wife or children. He was a Buddhist but converted to Christianity when I was seven. His conversion transformed him, not in a positive light, but one that buries him in fear…
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“Our Window,” A Love Poem
Sometimes, the air smells of you when I unlock our mahogany dust-coated chest Captured whiffs from the past that never seem to dissolve like the feeling of an intimate kiss on damp, bare skin. Once, I wipe the dust off, staining my hands with hints of dried tears and fallen petals of bleeding hearts the lock slips off, and I peer in the kaleidoscope of this still world, the fresh scent of pine trees will escape, but they remain trapped inside where the wind brushes and leaves and comes back. Locks of laughter emerge, hushed whispers under warm sheets in darkness, save for the glow of untouched, locked phone screens.…
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“Teeth,” A Narrative
The following memoir piece titled, “Teeth,” is an excerpt from my final project, Breaking the Silence Behind the Doors of my Family and Body: Wearing Words, for my Disability Narratives course. Teeth My heart thumps and pounds just like an intruder breaking down the door to steal the jewels inside, and my hands shake out of my control—it is like some stranger has detached my own hands and reattached unwanted hands onto my arms—almost a Frankenstein’s creature type of reattachment—and I cannot seem to string words together to speak coherent sentences because my mind is clouded with panic, and I have no control over my body. Panic rushes in…
