Kitchen Paragraph

I drop a glob of jelly and pulp into a mug of steaming water and turn it into a yellow whirlpool of citron tea. Then I drink it right away and burn my tongue, which is kind of sad, considering that I’ve broken my two year old leg, scratched up my face from acrobatic monkey bar feats, and gotten all cut up and bruised from off-roading on my bike, proudly displaying my battle scars, and here I am with a much less glorious tongue burn. So, I mask the burn with cookies, and watch as the crumbs fall next to the scratches and stains on our white table. I think that the stain right in front of me is from a ring of spilled coffee. No one is really sure who spilled the coffee and none of us are willing to clean up a mess that isn’t ours. That stain’s just going to stay there until someone--probably me or my dad--attacks it with a scrubber and cleaner.

To the left of the table is our old oven. Most of the scars on skin from hot metal have faded--the only scars are on the oven itself. Some areas have a darker brown or black tinge, maybe from the the times my dad broiled fish or baked tender holiday turkeys and hams, or maybe from the times I made Fathers’ Day or birthday butter mochi, experimental pies, or masses of cookies for giving away. The handles have a light dusting of rust here and there, and, considering that the chips of paint can barely stay on our wall and that the floor tiles are always loosening from their spots, I’m just glad that the handles are fully attached.

A line of cabinets and countertop leads a trail to the sink, where little flecks of rust and small patches of soap scum mark the many dishwashing sessions. A couple of ants are wandering on it--I’m not sure why because there aren’t any food remnants in the sink. They just know that we’re bound to slip up some time. Those ants are just as bad as hungry brothers, just pacing back and forth and scavenging for a snack. I guess I won’t kill the ants this time. 

Right next to the sink is the knife holder. My favorite is knife is on the left, two from the top. It has some oval marks and is evidently from Spain, but I really don’t care about that. I’m drawn to its sharpness. It has slashed and severed to prove its worth. With every cut I make to food, I enjoy the swift, smooth motion. There’s also the serrated knife that my sister tried to use to cut my bangs once. She denies it, but I’m pretty sure it happened. One day, she just said something like, “Let me cut your bangs with the knife.” 

So, of course, in my typical younger sister fashion, I said, “Ummmmm. I don’t know, but, well, OK.” It actually kind of hurt because the knife wasn’t that sharp and it felt like the knife was pulling at my hair. Maybe that’s the true reason I dislike dull knives. So anyway, we just gave up  because it didn’t work, and that’s the only reason my parents never found out.

Next to the knives, t

here’s a small army of soap and detergent bottles. Two are full, some are half full, and one is nearly empty one. Since we’re cheap Chinese, we obviously won’t just throw away a perfectly good soap bottle. No one wants to refill it, though. I guess that sums up my family--stained tables and empty soap bottles.

Fragments and Targets (SLAM)

They were going to be

patterned urns,
symmetrical vases,
smooth sculptures,
but now,
my broken glass,
shattered ceramic desires,
are just a blanket under my feet.
I step right
to see they form shapes
of light stabbing a forest,
suspended water spheres,
a window’s ledge,
stretching blue,
an unseen smile,
and realize,
my failings
have a different beauty.

It’s the beauty of
the last runner,
fighting his contracted muscle
for 30 yards of limps
to conquer the finish line.
It’s the beauty of
dark half moons under a caregiver’s eyes--
the tattoos of morning coaxing and night clean-ups
that afternoon breaks can’t hide.
It’s the beauty of a rubbing alcohol stream
poured into a cut
to scratch out infection
and jab purifying needles.
It’s the beauty of a wife,
hiding blood from her lungs,
putting cancer on hold
so she could tell her husband
“goodbye.”
It’s when my disaster audition
and burnt cookies
are the jagged pieces I needed
for the sun’s reflection
in my mosaic--
Not to Iove making mistakes,
but love that they make me.

And yes,
I’m defying my “Asianness.”
“You must be this” and “you can never do this” commands
from tiger moms
I meet and create
are hot oil drops bouncing off my
orange juice rejection--
always trying to combine,
but never accepted.
Success isn’t measured with
percents and lead-filled bubbles
because “the best”
with letters and numbers to aim at
isn’t my bull’s-eye.
“My best”
is the arrow that never misses
my moving targets.

I hope,
so much,
that I’m never named perfectionist.
“Perfect”is a mirror pond
with light ripples
masking corrosive embraces.
“Perfect”is gold statue
made by worshipers
to reflect floodlights
and blind them
from their own cracks
and fill their caverns with liquid success
until they create fulfillment
that always shifts
and breaks,
never crystallizing.
“Perfect” needs airbrushes and erasers
with painted people
hating and breaking
with super glued eye patches
of Photoshopped fantasies
and fraying net insides.

I’ve aimed at “perfect”
floating too close to the sun.
So I tried to sprout wings
defeated by gravity
burned up by reality
and all I had
were tentacles,
detached suction cups
flagging the dreams
I lashed at
and couldn’t hold.

My kindergarten teacher said,
“Mistakes are for learning.”
So I learned
by tracing outlines in crayon
and inking my insides with markers
bleeding onto my smiley stickers,
but everyone knows you outline with marker
and color in with crayon.
My drawing was abnormal--
wrong.
Others’ crayon insides
made my marker stains
self-consciousness
until my ink
could trust hands and brushes
to cover sidewalks
with fingerprints and splatters.

Those mistakes were the seesaws and trampolines
to shatter the glass cubes
that held me,
with no holes for oxygen--
just suffocating plans
of test scores and art pieces that others set for me,
or that I traced.
So sometimes,
I needed one person,
invisible to me before,
to jump on the other side
to help my short legs
and cheer when my hands finally broke through.
The slivers of bloodstained glass
formed a girl’s smile,
and I realized how cold I was,
with ice braces of streak-free expectations,
but imperfection was the sun’s bite on my skin
reminding me,
I’m alive.

I can’t see the end of this mosaic...
so,
I pull out my bow,
close my eyes,
shoot an arrow.

Stay

Freshly fallen rain
that exists to give can still
return to the sky.

Just One Sip

Ants enter water
to be refreshed, or maybe,
drowning tempts too much.

Amputate

Blushing flower hues
joined to a spiky pillar
separate through death.

Embrace the Dark

Whipping hate-tinged words
plunge her to soothing dark seas
to drown in red stripes.

Origins

Violins of trees
touch life only to reflect
unchangeable roots.

The Murder

Apathetic fingers release
the multicolored, silver-lined pocket
that held chips.
It flutters past legs of tables and people
to a concrete resting place.
Anguished air moves the cellophane
to a bed of life
where innocent leaves coil back
and wither in submission.
The soil,
the bees,
the surrounding carpet of green,
watch their helpless friend
and cry,
“Why?”
The answer is a stream of eyes
flowing past,
not urging the feet to turn,
not commanding the fingers to move,
not forcing the heart to care,
not stopping the murder,
not recognizing the accomplice.

New Hunger

When bolted shut by screens of plasma’s shacks,
the eyes were tacked to pictures starring Clark
Kents. Never-ending discontentment sparks
unlocking doors while displays change to black.

And leaves unleash a rustling greeting back
to hungry groups of people seeking arks
of beauty. They compel the men to park
with newly freed minds asking what they lack.

So they digest the earth and life and sky
with newly styled taste buds transformed now
from captivating pixelated ones.
The endless sets of lively ponds for eyes
and plants in unmatched clusters grown with bows
are magnifying glasses for the sun.

Harmony of Silence

She plays harmony to the sky
as an audience hears with eyes
that don’t understand.
Each note is longing and love
for the eyes to get a droplet,
to see more than clouds.
But the clouds are anchored
and watchers move on
disappointed.
She can’t let them leave
without hearing
her last desperate note of silent harmony
as three thundering, 
beckoning notes of divine melody respond.
Feet move faster
away, to stop, or turn around,
and she prays for a storm.

Mouthful of Ocean

“I promise.”
Your tilted dimple speaks differently.
You yank me into your rip current.
I want to leave the cold water,
but stay,
have to run from toxic tentacles,
but stay,
need to find calmer waters,
but fail
and stay.
I am a decomposing fish
tossed in your shorebreak,
the burn of ocean scraping my throat.