Do you remember when my mom used to bring us Chinese food after work? I thought she was always so pretty—even in her work jeans and boots, her hair teased and poofed up. 

Chicken chow mein with baby corn.

Wasn’t there something frivolous about it all? She didn’t feel like cooking, Kwon’s was on her way home. Wasn’t it beautiful that she had control over that moment? This didn’t require moral introspection, fight/flight, him versus us.  

“Someone told me long ago…”

She saw him hit me but she didn’t know. 

Shrimp fried rice, extra chili sauce. Wasn’t her careless laughter so contagious? Couldn’t she talk to anyone? 

She saw the rain coming down on a sunny day, but she didn’t know. 

“I know.”

She saw him break my nose, she heard me scream. But she didn’t know. 

“‘Til forever, on it goes.”

Kwons tastes just as good the next day, reheated in the microwave. Extra green onions, please. 

He said, “get him out of my sight before I kill him.”

Wasn’t it fun when she would dress up? When she would wear her leather jacket and do her makeup? Didn’t it feel good when she smiled so hard her eyes would close? 

“Have you ever seen the rain?”

I see…
I see in front of me
A beautiful building made of stone 
And trees and flowers surround its form

Waterfalls…
On each side, adorn its walls
And form a perfect symmetry 
a marriage of engineering and Divinely crafted beauty.

And in my ear
A familiar voice I hear 
Nonchalant to this fragility of ours 
racing past the highest of stars


Because we’re flying!
My God I am flying, round and round this sight so mystifying 
And the higher I go, the more I know 
that this plane must land, by my hand even so. 

And then
And only then is exactly when
(After such a course flown so aimlessly) 
That I become aware that the pilot here is me. 

Oh, but how…
Is there no way to escape the “now?”
10,000 meters up and reasons why
I always fail before I try.

But maybe they’ll never know
Because I will never let show
that my testament of safety
Is written with my own self-inflicted inability

And grace appears
In the form of waking amid my fears.
And all I can do is cry, 
and ask God why

Why couldn’t I land that plane?

I let out the sails of my heart

Here I am, here You are

I let out the sails of my heart

Here I am, here You are

Oh, Lord set me free

Oh, Lord set me free

Tell me of this world 

where chocolate roses bloom

Where eyes and heart are not apart

in what they truthfully assume

Tell me of this place you know

where imagination’s real.

where minds need not to wander off

nor their dreams ever conceal 

In that world, the here and now

is better than what could be.

The work of art is satisfied 

here in the dreamer’s apogee

And as I stare into this chocolate rose

I sheepishly propose,

that after you tell me what’s in your head,

that you would take me there instead. 

Here's to you

Here’s to you little guy

to dinosaurs and library books,

to demons under your bed.

To ESL and RSP, 

and the things they said you’d never be.

Here’s to curly hair you’ll learn to like one day,

and the place you’ll find one day... you'll see.

Here’s to father figures,

bloody noses, scar tissue,

medications and the things

you said you’d never do.

Here’s to stars and planets,

and the novels that taught you to feel.

Feel the things you’d never felt for real.

Here’s to curiosities,

montrisities,

grandiosities you’ve only read about back then

but will live later.

Here’s to hiding behind trees,

being alone but never lonely,

looking people in the heart,

and not their eyes.

Here’s to sticking with me, tenacious little guy.

teaching me to gawk at dinosaur bones

connecting the dots in the night sky.

Reminding me that God never left you 

in those sleepless nights alone.

Here’s to laughing and sometimes crying.

Here’s to living, and never dying.

Here’s to being strong while feeling fragile.

to watching everything unravel.

Here’s to us, little guy.

Here’s to us.

Postmortem

It's so hard just to know that
I can't reach you.

And I'm no victim,
but I'm no hero,
but I wanted so bad
to reach you.

Poison

Save me.

Oh God, save me. From this poison that I drink. 

From what he did and what she said 

and how it’s killing me instead.

Heal me.

Oh God heal me. From these wrongs I cannot right.

From this murder I conspire

from this evil I desire

Hatred looks me in the eye, swears to me he’s on my side…

He’s the only one… the only one who cares for me.

But as he whispers in my ear, 

he plunges a sword in my belly… 

yes, he plunges a sword in my belly 

and blames the one I see…. 

the one I see with misery 

And how I believe him. 

Silly me, how I believe him.

Hold me.

Oh God, hold me; all I do is vomit blood.

blood stained tears and bitterness

the things I just cant put to rest

But the steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; 

His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; 

great is Your faithfulness

Hello, stranger.

You made me smile, unexpected kindness in an apathetic world, unprecedented warmth among cold people. Such a sense of being deliberate, yet nothing to connect it to. No one’s looked at me like this before. No… no romance, no attraction, nothing like that… but a peer into my heart… I wonder what you saw?

Yes, I felt something with you today. 

And will you now say goodbye?

I walked the same street I always walk, from the mundane job I lend my brain to for 8 1/2 hours, to the same brown apartment building, with nothing on my mind but the show I recorded for tonight, and the fact that today, is Thursday… the weekend, meager as it, is in sight.

Yes. Yes, that’s my wallet. thank you… I didn’t realized that I dropped it. You may not know this, but for this second, my routine was disrupted… Because I don’t know. I don’t know what hope is. I don’t know why I’m here. I don’t know what’s beyond my world that’s so small and so not even about me. So what’s your deal? You have in hope in you? You have answers?

 And will you now say goodbye? And will you now just walk away?

Do you feel that war waging inside you? When time slowed down and you realized that at this moment all of heaven peered on you and I, that the blur of the crowds of thousands of people walking on the brink of death brought your focus to me, do you see me beyond my language, my color, my occupation, or mood? Do you see me with the same eye that He saw you with? Was this homeless, Jewish man culturally irrelevant to you? A source of embarrassment? Do you see Him as a mere byproduct of your American culture, surely incompatible to an Asian woman like me? Is He just a man? Does He love me?

Does He love me?

Does He love me?

Does He love me?

What price will must I pay for your embarrassment, over your fear of my rejection, over your adherence to cultural ideals? 

My soul?

Is love just politeness to you? A dollar to a homeless man? A smile to a tired woman? And open door to a crippled man? 

How will I know unless someone preach to me? How will I believe if I do not know?

Will you now say goodbye?

Will you now say goodbye?