(In retrospect after months of therapy, I know this was written in a dark time and it now reads much more like a letter to myself but take it how you will.) You, you are late. I have felt your ache for as long as I can remember. Felt you brush over my skin in the depths of my sleep. I have told you about the moon, the birds, the lakes, and the trees. Felt you in the warmth of the sun, the cold in the night. I told everyone about you! How you were late but coming, you are comi

I saw two green apples buoying in the sea and it made me so happy. (I still think about them.)

(Rewritten from 8/24/2017 journal entry) I agreed to have lunch with a new colleague, and we decided to go to a dingy basement 茶餐廳 (cha chaan teng) on 昭隆街 (Chiu Lung Street). We had to 搭枱 (share a table) given that it was right smack during peak lunch hour. Across from us sat this unassuming family of three — a couple in business casual and a small girl with such a memorable doll face, tanned skin and large watery lake-like eyes. She only stood as tall as a fire hydrant and h

Like sunbeams dancing on closed eyes, orange-red melting warm in my skin, butter spread on toast. Before they put me under, I drew her presence three feet away. A child’s small paws searching on your face, committing to memory, absolute joy, pure delight. Her curdle and open arm reach when you leave the edge of sight. At seventeen, someone I loved who couldn’t cook made me a sandwich. I can still feel the baguette in my hands, taste the Dijon in my mouth. One minuscule bite a

I really like you. My sourdough starter is named after Sarie. I cried at your study note on the pages on Dion and Joseph in “The Gift of Therapy” and wanted to keep it. It feels lonely to carry this relationship by myself. You appear in my dreams and show up with my family buying Tide pods and you apparently speak Mandarin. I know your walk. I’ve heard about your strawberry dungarees three times, every time as lovely as the last. I hope you wear them to work someday. "No it's

To build is to break, to break is to build. To love is to grieve, to grieve is to love. To awe is to fear, to fear is to awe. To remember is to forget, to forget is to remember. The wound is the cure, the cure is the wound. Be brave, little one. What you find luminous in everything, is everything luminous in you. Life is but a dream.

Loveable — Amber Rae 3/10; too hopeful, too easy. a novel about a woman who leaves her husband for her true love. can I possibly be the true love? would she ever leave him? probably not. The Course of Love — Alain de Botton 6/10; marriage is fucking hard, they will make it work. you're just the blip. she won't choose you, they never do. let her read this too — she'll see. Polysecure — Jessica Fern 6/10; intergenerational trauma, cultural trauma. am I polyamorous? — or teachin

A book is just a book. I hugged it at the airport. I set it on top of my pillow. I promised to custody it, cried sideways on it, left a mark, and felt immensely guilty for ruining it. I wrapped it in my favorite shirt, and carried it around like a child. I perched it on the windowsill so it could soak up some sun and vit d. A therapy session is just 60 mins. "I'll always be everything you needed me to be." A promise spoken like a threat. "Thankfully therapists have really goo

I would like to think we take parts of people with us forever. Women. Mom taught me what family really meant, the harvest of discipline and hard work. They taught me to look up at the moon, how to write, and to emote, how to read people like a sixth sense. They taught me the magic of Ghibli and the sorcery of a cat's trust. They taught me to always wear my seatbelt, taught me what affairs looked like and what a trauma bond feels like.

the profundity and absurdity of the therapeutic frame

I'm afraid of so many things. Sometimes it's debilitating. Sometimes it's gentle but ever-present, nudging me to retreat. I'm afraid of wearing bathing suits, afraid of calling a waiter over wrong, afraid of reading texts too soon or too slow, afraid of ordering the wrong thing at restaurants, afraid of making a mistake at work, afraid of being alone, afraid of not being alone, afraid of living, afraid of death. Some days a single step feels like wading through mud. Today mig

hi lou, i didn’t have the heart to tell you — if it weren’t for the prospect of tiny junip, my future daughter, i’m not sure i’d want to stay here very long. an unfair amount of tethering to project onto someone who doesn’t exist yet. equal parts awe and feces, as they say. thank you for telling me your sons helped you find yourself — the way they see you, i think i see you a little like that too. i have felt alone for as long as i can remember. this season more than most. i

I feel a globe the size of a golf ball in my chest. It's on my right, above my breasts and beneath my collar bone. It sometimes hollows and reverberates when I feel a specific type of pain. The pain of an unrequited or simply unfulfilled love. A desire to see a lover oceans away. The three words "I miss you" seem to capture the dull ache quite well. The ache can be described as a sour clench, a pang of craving for something or someone unattainable. It starts from the globe, t

(Another fragment written in the same dark season.) Being vulnerable is easy for me, I can easily describe all the multitudes of sadness that I feel and name why. I’ve been triggered by babies and children lately, I see their tiny teacup faces and I think about yours and how they’ll never be mine or how I might never have any. I envision your happy Sundays where you take your stroller on a quiet walk by the pier with him. It breaks my heart again and again. I think about your

For the Stressed Boy Dear Ho, I don't think I ever told you that I think about the Spotify Jam — in bed, in the dark, on the phone — or the long-distance calls all through the Seoul trip. I don't think I ever told you how shaken I was after January 1st, 2025, but you cabbed over to keep me company. Mostly, I'll never forget that one big group dinner at the now-closed Tokyo Lima. I was being moody, and I saw — for a split second — an emotion on your face. An emotion I dare no

dear lou, i hope you're having a good holiday. i went to a "healing hearts" session by the new normal charity and sat in a room full of strangers in different stages of their heartbreak and healing journey. i listened intently, grounded myself with breathing, and stayed detached whilst simultaneously empathizing with their pain. i have a new found appreciation for what you do for me every week and a new found pride in finding inner peace with your help. i told you i think ill

Hope is the most corrupt and yet the most exquisite concept that exists on this plane. The Hope that a scorned love will heal, the Hope that a lover who fell out of love will return. The Hope that a missing person will be found after 48 hours, show up on your doorstep safe and sound. The Hope that a terminally-ill loved one will survive. The Hope that assets lost will rise in value again. The Hope that a lost or stolen item of personal value will be found. We pray, yearn and