Nice Thoughts

by lei

I've been having lots of nice thoughts lately. Like I could write a note and stick it on their door. Maybe tell them they're pretty cool, maybe leave a plate of unhealthy sweets. Like I'll be ready whenever she needs me. Like I'll hug her when I see her. Like I want to lay on the empty side of her bed, or just rest my head on her arm, and ask her if she knows she's my favorite person. Maybe because she feels like home now. Because I equate their smiles with a past life that included blood, not bleeding blood but the blood that flows without asking—I didn't ask to be your daughter, but I am and sometimes I forget that. I smile and say it's fine when I accidentally knock into a stranger's arm (did I do it on purpose because I've forgotten—and at the same time never knew—what it feels like to be close to somebody? that's another matter entirely). I hold the door open, even if the person is quite far or may not even be headed my direction. Sometimes when I hear strangers curse just outside my window because the door is closed and locked, I feel the urge to yell out the window if they need to get in—I always feel obliged to start conversations with strangers by asking obvious questions I already know the answer to—and tell them I can come open it for them. But I never do. I just smile at the thought, admire how nice it is, then return to that flat piece of space designated for sleeping that my body and mind have morphed into a burial site.

Ten Second Snaps

by lei

you poured your fears
in ten second pictures
laid them on my lap
inside my mouth
stitched a story of hurt
that shamed every complaint
I'd ever thought to mumble
onto the inside of my cheek
and every piece I swallow
reads the memory stored
in sloppy red digital marker

of how your eyes saw more
pain than any twice your age
could've managed to stomach

of how your shoulders slump
lower than mine
and maybe that's why you told me to stand up straight

of how his disappointment
looms above your knitted brows
and shadows every clever joke
and digs creases of worry into your thoughts
deeper than the ones I carve into my forehead

but this is not about superlatives
this is not about ers and thans and mores
or you versus a world that doesn't get it
doesn't care

this is about how I held every ten second fear
you sent across a desert at 2 a.m.
each entirety in my right forefinger
but the fear and pain and hurt didn't feel
foreign or shock or hurt
it felt right at home
felt like realizing the child you are in my eyes
had always forced its rent on my heart
and grew up in the crevices, cowering
but always whispering what pain crept, raging behind your smile
to my clogged, fearful ears
so when you snapped
every ten second fear
seemed to stream from your half-caught face
and my piled-up half-dismissed worries
simultaneously.

and my body calls out in the night
just to be crushed in your heavy arms
one more time
even silently the letters formed by your thoughts
of what your mouth would say if it had the choice
to be heard by my wide-open ears
brings a smile to my heart
even when the words you would say
would say nothing at all
it's just nice to know they're there.

this is in part a story of admiration
this is in part a hope that I won't lose you
this is in part the only way for me to cling
for me to remember
the way the hurt
the way the fear
the way the truth
slipped out so seamlessly
in one of those trivial apps
that every parent fears will be the undoing of society
and I just fear will be the early onset of my Alzheimer's

mostly I just want to remember your smile
the one that curls the lids of your eyes
past Asia (just ever so slightly)
and reverts your manhood
back to the childhood where it belongs

mostly I just want to remember your stubbly black hair
as it smashes itself into my shoulder
making home for your head out of my weak flailing arm
that won't ever complain

mostly I just want to remember your heavy heavy hand
decorated by oddly baby-soft skin
resting on my head
flicking through strands of my ever-straight hair
or slipped inside the coarse, smelly rubber
aimed right for my nose

again and again and again

and every time that red-filled square pops up
your favorite color
I try to pin what I want to remember most
squashed between the 9ish inch screen
and my tired right forefinger
and hold on for as long as I can
but it's always gone within ten seconds
or less

Thought Addiction

Thought Addiction
By Lei

I like you in the folds of my brain

I like you lingering in last night’s sleeplessness

where you feel like a disconcerting dream

 I cannot quite shake off

I like you wandering through my lucidity

weaving in and out of the sanity

 I pretend to maintain

I like you where you are

just far enough away

 for me to sometimes forget you exist

I like you hiding in my memory

& then suddenly attacking the forefront of my brain

 with some arbitrary moment in our past interactions

  usually one I spent ninety percent of in my mind

   worrying you were criticizing every bit of me

    or imagining some extended version

     of our current conversation

      and then replaying the moment

       on an endless loop

        in the ensuing days

         like the favorite song

          I can’t get enough of

I like you popping up

cropping out reality

 as I try to focus

  on anything else

   anything that’s

     not you

I like you even in my angry realization

that you’re not who my mind tells me you are

 no matter how often I want you to be

I like you slipping

trickling

 falling sweetly into place

  never into my arms

   always into my mind

I like you as you are:

my very own idea

 the one that never

  fails to make me

   smile

fall disillusion

fall disillusion

by lei

dethroned of all naiveté

stripped of warm preconceptions:

a premonition of harsh winter winds

winding their way,

weaving into me

—soft whispers of tomorrow’s gusts.

i hear their stories

watch their lives unfold

try to convince myself i’ll get there one day

but tonight,

in cold autumn waves

i realize i will wear the title of youngest

til the holes in the soles of my shoes

are no longer the negative spaces

but the overall -ness.