Cute

I just looked down at my own knees and thighs and thought they were cute. Even my feet are cute. My toes, awwww. God, so adorable. I'm about to scream hahaha. And the way I walk. Where I put my weight. How quickly and excitedly I talk when I'm happy about something. 

I don't think I've ever felt this way about myself before. I mean, I know I'm cute ha. But I didn't fully FEEL it. Until recently welp. :P 

The dimples on my outer thigh when I sit in a specific way. My cute little hands, which I had thought were big hands for the longest time. Are smol. 

I hope I stay this cute. 

I am a nut.

I am so creepy. To myself. 

Episode 76: Sky Garden Evenings

Good evening,

It's 2 am and I already know that a part of me will always belong to the 6th floor sky garden.

Nights spent bare-toed, toeing the tiles. Heads tilted back or shoulders leaning forward to hear each other's stories at different angles. The same looks on our faces. Eyes focused, eyes laughing, eye whites. Haha. Joking, no eye whites. Just egg whites. 

These are the good times. I'm in it. Like Andy from the The Office always wished he knew it was the good times when he was in it. 

How lucky I am, to be the one to know it this time. Garima, Naina, Neha knows it. 

Nothing like the elevator ride back home. It opens on the 6th floor. There they are. Knees propped up, deep in conversation about something. Anything at all. Things I might be too old to talk about. Things I know all too well or all the things that I'm ready to listen and learn about. 

Together, we feel like family. Cheering each other on. Calling each other out. Family-style. 

I think it's raining right now. Maybe... and god it is. Yup. 

This is a replAY of my time in England almost 4 years ago. Gosh. But now I'm much wiser with more forethought and groundedness. 

Here I am, in the exact place I always hoped to be again. The place that I never thought I'd return to. Those fulfilling feelings I get when I meet the right people, at the right time, in all the right new places.

I already laugh a lot naturally. Here in Singapore, in our suite dinners, suite gatherings, sweet suite everything -- I am laughing all the time. On crack with the rest of them. All of us giving each other crack the moment we think we're done. A glance at each other is the wrong thing to do. Our laughs enhanced. Echoing so loudly throughout the often reserved dining halls. We feel like an island of all the fun things only we know about.

Naina, Neha, Garima, Ian, and I. Haha, of course, we're definitely NOT an island of people, because most of the time, we meet new people. New conversations. Nicholas joining us in the sky garden, telling us jokes only he gets. We all laugh at how unfunny they are-- the amazing amount of time someone can laugh at their own jokes. Matthew's happenstances, his energy always supportive. Such a fun, fun person, but he follows no one blindly.

Neha is asleep, all cuddled up on the living room couch. She doesn't want to feel alone tonight in her room, but our rooms are literally next to each other. Perhaps it's how open the living room space is. How everyone walks through it. Perhaps by sleeping out there, the sense of closeness exists in all the steps we take to meet each other in the middle. Neha may be the youngest and even, haha, inexperienced at life than all of us in the suite, but she's one of the best listeners I've ever met. She can make me feel so seen, so quickly. I could open all my doors and she'd have wisdom into it. Sweet and well-meaning, most of the time, this silly girl. Pft.

Naina either does or doesn't have otter watching tomorrow. She perseveres through all the tough shit she's had to go through. Nothing can stop her. Nothing but the gods. That's how sure I am that this one was given the natural gift of believing in herself and her story. I know she cares about all of us and it would never be a boring day with Naina. Ever. So excitable, fearful of all lizards of any size -- if I ever see a lizard again in my life, I'm going to remember Singapore. Because I'll remember the days when I had to catch and fling lizards from the 6th floor sky garden outta that broom stick. Some girl with bedhair feverishly knocking on my door. My ugly half-awake ass moving out to assess the situation. And fix it promptly hahahaha.

Garima's soul. Her stormy gray eyes gazing back at yours. The depths of laughter she could reach with me and everyone ever. How is it that I can click with someone so quickly? I know it. I feel it. We were meant to find each other. I was meant to meet her -- that's the feeling I got the evening I first met her. This is the feeling that's continued to stay. Good. Soulful and GOOD. Sometimes, I feel like she sees right through me. And god, I want to protect her. She might feel like the strongest of us all and she’s used to protecting everyone else. That’s how giving she is. She’s young but so so so mature. Insightful. And absolutely breathtaking when she looks into your eyes and only focusing on you. It’s like she could pull out any deep dark secret in me and wouldn’t ever ever judge me for it. Garima Chib.

Ian is too good for this world. He's much older than all of us. Fine. It's just 2 years, but his politeness is out of this world. So kind. Anyone can tell. He goes out of his way to show people he cares, even when it makes him uncomfortable. So thoughtful and sweet and a step ahead. UNLIKE Nicholas, Ian doesn’t think he’s funny but woah he REALLY IS. 😂 he’s incredibly philosophical and insightful and wise. Someone that could see both sides of the story at the same time and evaluate accordingly. And so so good. It's general consensus that we all want to make him smile. We hope that anyone who ever hurts him knows about all the tiger mamas guarding him. I don't think I've ever wanted to protect a man who I wasn't in love with to this extent. Cuz woah. Ian makes you proteccccc.

Sky garden. Neha's butt mat. Naina's cold fingers. Garima's eyes. Ian's smile. My laugh.

There we are. Making silly observations about the moon. Telling ourselves to quiet down after a good laugh. Comforting each other over something. Fighting a common enemy that isn't even there. Plans made on a whim because of somebody's appetite.

God, I want to eat cake. GOOD cake. As good as the goodness of what has been some of the most peaceful, most beautiful times in my life. 

I feel so whole and confident when I say that my favorite place right now is anywhere I can hang out with my suitemates. Like spring, they're growing on me. Like spring, I feel all these little buds and blossoms in my heart. I wonder where I might ever feel this pretty feeling again. Of COURSE I'll feel it again!! Just again, differently. Like these feelings are just variations of the same feelings I get when I'm at Smith. Now in Singapore. ^-^

I do know, for sure, that whatever future I have. That I always have their numbers on speed dial. Ready.

The moon watches over us all. A witness to the beauty that is our lives entwined, in this moment. No moment more. No moment less. 

Sky garden evenings. Like spring, I cherish. 

There Will Be Lies

There Will Be Lies - 11-8-21

You allow yourself to trust

Not like you’re not afraid

Of what the truth really is

Or if not knowing the lies would 

Hurt more,

But because 

you want to believe you’re worth the effort

Of Someone else’s truths.

That they opened a door into

The heart of who they are

Just for you.

And maybe not just for you

But they welcomed you in

Like the special thing you think you are.

You found your peek inside

warm and inviting. A safe place to lose your earrings. Youthful and silly and bright like them.

God, you wanted to stay.

That young, hands-held-out-to-grasp-at-everything you – 

The you who learned to shun a future forever,

Cherished the new predicament you were in.

Invited the small breeze of “forever” in

Like the easiest thing you’ve ever said. 

Here lies their head on your chest. 

Here lies someone you want to protect.

The dance on the front porch, ask them to strum your song.

The conversation too cold to hold outside,

But there was enough heat between you two to 

Make you forget,

As they cupped your face, a tear on their thumb.

The Greek God in them draped your vision. 

The things Gods say to their lovers,

You received. Let it be forever. And fuck you if it isn’t. 

“Keep me here with that gaze. Don’t you dare let me rot here, trying to forget you.”

But truth is imaginary. Subjective. Created.

A derivative of a vision.

Your hand gripping my thigh as you drived.

But visions are envisioned.

The road through us

Imaginary, as hard as I fought to stay

And brave the

“None of it was a lie. 

We’re as strong as ever.”

No doubt

There will be lies

To lick the wrongs away

To silence the echoes of their existence in every world you walk in after, 

or sew together what 

Doesn’t fit together.

Two things that don’t fit together

Now fit together.

Two people

grip each other.

How easily can you lie? 

Then again, you don’t just lie with words only.

You lie with what you 

Left out. 

You lie when you want to leave

Out

The truth 

of the matter

is

You lie when you leaf through someone else’s pages,

Find the reality not at all what you imagined.

Unhappy, uncertain if the distance between you both is in your head, and if it isn’t, 

you fear you’d 

Overstay like the coward you never wanted to be. 

Let a good thing like them go?

Where might you find a them, even like them, again?

Don’t tell a soul. 

Relay to me all my half-truths.

The ones I tell myself

When I convince my own eyes

That i do matter in yours.

While the evidence is laid bare. The jury retaliates against my

Judgement. A recount. Re-ballot. Recall. 

All the truths. All the witnesses. All of them lied

With the purple-tinted glasses they wore that day. All the days

We saw ourselves together.

------------------------------------------------

[I wrote this piece in early November last year. YES, I knowww it's a sad, breakup poem haha. It's been almost three months since I wrote this piece and disclaimer, it does get very personal. One of my best friends said it was, "Very raw." And I agree. It really is.

I made the choice to leave something that had at one time, felt like the greatest relationship. But things crumbled all too quickly. There was so much fear I had days before I left. Because without ever saying he had left, it felt like he was gone. Our emotional distance permeated everything and I thought I was patient. I thought I could be happy with the new little we had as his life spiraled. None of it our faults.

Perhaps I wasn't busy enough to not hear from him for days. Just a sliver of good mornings and good nights on repeat. Perhaps I'm too immature and ungrateful at the handful of catch-up calls we had that month, his sleepiness and constant exhaustion a reminder for me to end the call quickly so he could rest.

So I left.

Even though it felt like the stupidest thing I've ever did, it was for the best. I needed to leave so I could learn and build and rebuild and re-evaluate what was good for me and felt good to me. Because what he and I had certainly didn't serve either of us. For me, I had to ask myself "Why stay in something that looked and felt like a daydream yet I was in hurt, ache, and resentment?"

I've decided to publish this piece here, because I've made peace with it. I wouldn't have published this if it was still as raw as when I first wrote it.

I hope you enjoy reading my sad feelings again. Hah. And don't worry about me after reading this! I am a very good peachy girl right now haha. More Singapore updates to come ^-^]

Where is the Red?

[out of the vault: - 11/1/21]

a quickie poem I wrote in midterms szn :)

-------------------------------------------------------------------

I locked myself away 

For an essay.

If I pull my earbuds out now,

It would only be bags unzipping, pencil pressed to paper, a cacophony of someone else’s and my own typing.

It’s supposed to be a Reading Room. 

Where is the light though? 

A new, shiny, expensive building but even the tables

Absorb light. The spaces between the bookshelves are 

Black holes.

Browns, beige, grays, brown-reds, yellow-browns.

Nothing inspires except what’s beyond the

Rectangle windows not BIG enough

To invite in

the real, fresh, warm light.

From the slivers

I see blue. Baby blue. God, you’re so pretty.

A squirrel finessing the edge of a bright red, orange, yellow tree 

Taller than JMG

Hall.

The tree is so fucking red. 

Catapult me to its branches. I’ll happily bleed out.

I see golden. Like the sweater on me, the one a friend gifted,

perhaps because there's

A sleeve torn that my forearm could slide through easily and exactly half of it frayed--

Plushy, warm, homely.

I want to pee.

I need to write my essay,

Not exist here romancing and fumbling through poetry.

Episode 75: Ngoc's Saga

1.7.22.

I'm a dirty talking Buddhist who laughs too loud for her own good. Laughs too loud during Covid times. 

Laughs too loud where it's probably illegal to laugh. Like on Singaporean trains. 

It's only been 3 days. 3 real days, since I've arrived. 

Study abroad has been both exhausting but rewarding how already, I'm seeing myself in ways I've never seen before. I'm pushing myself and learning so so much about what matters and what doesn't and how to connect with just about anyone. :)

----------

1.22.22.

How is it that so much time has passed already? 

Singapore has exhausted me. Has taken so much from me, my literal blood and eye ball picture lol, and given me its rain, which I love. Singapore has brought me $3 meals and given me sugar cane juice in any and all amounts. It has shown me all the green its capable of. Shiny trees along every high way. Looking like planned, artificial beauties. Vibrant purples and blues -- the colors I love, under its Super trees. Where I lay my head next to Garima and Naina and together, we laughed like we were high.

But if we were actually high, we'd take the full brunt of the death penalty here. 

Ha. 

So much has happened that I can't even document it all. I just know that once again in my life, I felt so connected, loved, and seen as I did tonight. Not to mention, the amount of truly good, truly kind, and intelligent and deep people I've already gotten to meet in my time here. A little over 2 weeks and I surprise myself at how much I am thriving. I surprise myself with how vibrant and light on my feet I can be in any social setting.

No matter how new. Or how awkward. I survive and exceed my own expectations.

How much I can smile. Real smiles. Relaxed smiles. 

And how loud I can howl at the full moon, like a lil bitch.

Because I've become that jerk that howls at the moon at any hour of the day if I feel like it. My suitemates do not mind at all. Only Naina joins me in the howling, but it's worth, and the neighbors next door never partake in the howling. However, when I run into any of them, I feel like I say the stupidest things. Because whenever I do run into any of my neighbors, it's usually when I feel exhausted or preoccupied. 

Today, right after lunch, I wished one of them "good night Sid" as they waited for the elevator and right after, I slapped my forehead in absolute horror and humor. Finlay laughed out loud and smirkingly said, "you definitely shouldn't play League AND hold a conversation, no matter how short." 

But let's return to what happened tonight. Because tonight was nice.

Tonight was solid. 

There wasn't a full moon like the last 3 nights. It was a starless, moonless sky, and it's like 70% of YNC students have disappeared for the weekend to visit their parents, so soooo many of the dormitory windows are dark and empty. It was just Garima, Naina, Neha and her boyfriend, and I sitting on the sky garden. And like always, when I'm with any one or two of them, we end up making each other laugh. 

From the silly. Or a silly situation carved out of a serious one. We laugh together too much and I feel like I'll never quite find something like this ever again. 

A friendship so secure, and full and whole, that even saying the smallest of things instigates floods of laughter from all sides.

I've never laughed so much in my life. 

And we all know how my laughs are. 

They become cackles. And then I start howling, a table is slammed once or twice. My body quakes. And it feeds my soul when I can make someone laugh. Tonight was just that. 

The light I gathered from everyone's laughter and mine mixed together. None of us are perfect or are perfect for each other, but when we are together, sometimes it feels that way. 

"Ngoc, you're so confident and in tune with yourself. Not afraid of what anyone thinks of you. You know how to make anyone feel like they are seen and are such a great and active listener. You're incredible and I hope you know it as we do."  

Of course, I do feel lost. When I'm not laughing my guts out or making new friends, I feel like I don't know what to do with my hands. In a new country, I feel all this possibility, but at the same time I am trapped by it. If I'm sitting for hours or just being bored or just studying, I feel like I'm cheating myself out of a good time. I feel like I'm having fomo if I'm not hanging out with people or going out all the time, and it's this empty pursuit of happiness that makes me less and less happy at times. 

When I'm aware of this creeping feeling, I ground myself back to my breaths. What I do have. What I did get to do so far. How brave I've been. How far I've gone and back again. All the people I've gotten to know. 

Shut down the "comparisons" game. Because that game is easier to play than rejoicing all the moments I've had and the people I've connected with so far.

Singapore has been one big ride of uncertainty and newness and fear.

Sometimes, I want to run back to the familiar. My great friends at Smith. I want to return and do what? Feel comfortable again... feel whole, all the time. 

But already, I'm learning so much about myself here. It may not be a perfect experience, but I never saw this coming; I'm participating twice, even three times more than I did back at Smith. Here, at a co-ed institution, I'm studying harder than I ever did. On an exchange program at that haha. Here, I speak more. And I speak eloquently. I'm brave, even braver. 

I've just proven to myself that it doesn't matter what space I am in, traditionally all-women's or not; I can thrive anywhere where I feel valued or wherever I want to shine. 

I will. 

It's hard for me not to.

I have a pretty darn seemingly confident voice for it too, ha.

I had a lot of fears before coming here, and if I was on the right path at all, to be whatever it is I'm going to be -- because I really don't know what I want to do with my life. 

About a week before I left for Singapore, to have some insight into my life, I visited a fortune teller, Cau Chin. To see him was absolutely free, so you know his ish is NOT BS. And he told me all that I needed. All of the concerns I walked in with washed away from his penetrating words. 

Without asking me what my concerns were, he just looked at me once. 

"Who is NKL? Who is NKL?"

That's my father's name and my father looked up. 

"Because his oldest daughter will one day be the first ________."

My father instantly asked, "Are you sure, sir?"

Cau Chin responded, "Haha of course. I don't jest."

I gazed up, incredulous at the prediction. It was something I could never see for myself, far too out of reach, far from what would make me happy, and far too great to be mine. For now, I'll just see this part of the prediction as a feverish daydream.

Then he turned and looked at me in the eyes, pulling a necklace from his disciple's hands.

"Here is a necklace to support you on the next part of your journey and to remind you to live to your fullest, happiest, independent, confident, strongest, sexiest, juiciest self."

(it was at this part when I realized he REALLY saw me T__T -- cuz which monks tell you to be sexy??)

And immediately after: "I need you to remember how independent you are. You are a strong, independent woman. You do not need any man, child. If he is the right man, if he is the right love, he will choose you and you will know. Do not worry. Focus on being independent and strong. Do you understand me? Independent. INDEPENDENT!" He said it all with a flourish. In one breath. 

"Do you really understand me?"

I nodded, both confused and knowing exactly what that meant. 

I asked him quickly after, "Sir, am I currently walking on the right path?"

He said with a confident nod, "Yes you are. But your MANAGEMENT!!" And he slapped my upper arm hard.

"Is that all?" he asked with a grin and already moving on to the next client. 

I was so starstruck, I nodded a quick yes and thanked him as he got up. TIME MANAGEMENT is what he meant. And I know.... god I know.

A part of me was sad that I'd have to continue to be independent. That I have to continue being strong. Continuing to build that sense of self-assuredness --- it's exhausting. I just want to be a silly child for the rest of my life, if I could. Agh. And make cheese fries runs with my friends in the AMs. :( And of course, there are times when I just want to lay my head down to rest. On someone else's warm chest.

But I know what that means. I know what working on my independence means. I have to take initiative for what I want. My happiness is mine and does not flicker or stutter because of anyone. Let go of what doesn't make me happy. Build relationships with people I want to grow with. Be confident in my choices and defend my values. If fierce is what I have to be, so be it.  

I don't need to go with the flow. I can hold my own. I have the fire for it. 

I have a fire hot enough to burn my way through the dark.

I have a lot to be excited about. I have plenty to lose. And I hate being alone. 

I wonder who I will become after Singapore is over.

It's just been a little over 3 weeks but the changes. I'm seeing the changes already. 

I live in Saga house here on campus, and this has been

my Singapore Saga.

Rest,

Ngoc

P.S. Official Singapore updates in a follow up post I swear!! :P

Episode 74: A Word Away

Ocean Vuong, who is probably every young Vietnamese American's favorite poet right now, once wrote:

"Every word I write here is a word farther from you, Ma."

At least, that's what I think he wrote. I had trouble finding the real thing in my hazy 1:11 AM self.

Me. Ba. 

It's true.

For every new English word I learn, another Vietnamese word grows hazier or, is lost. Fizzing out. Connections between firing neurons to make the word, a word, snapped. 

And that scares the shit out of me. 

I dread the day that I learn another English word. Which is every day. 

All the history in your heads, is written in the neurons of your minds. Telling my mind. What it knows. What it thinks it knows. 

Memory is selective and self-serving all too many times. I bet your stories are too. Stories often are, but...

I'm trying to put together what it is I'm losing exactly. 

Why does it feel like I'm losing? A lot of little somethings? Trillions of possibilities: many of them I see share the same ending. 

My great great grandkids won't even know. 

Any bit as much as I know. 

Or anything at all of what you both know. 

Me. Ba. 

What will become of all that we know? What's going to happen to the history we fought so hard to protect? What history is left to spell out? My kids and their kids and their kids are going to never, not as much, not as much as we do. And I even can't. I can't even articulate what happened of our ancestors either.

I'm so so so sad. I know it's inevitable but god.

What a hefty goal it is, to desire rememberance.

And with every new English word I use,

like

"rememberance,"

I'm losing it.

It feels like a ticking time bomb that when it explodes, shatters all the time, all the memories, the glass reflecting myself back.

I taught my mother how to play a bit of "For the love of a princess" from Braveheart on the piano tonight.

It's a song I've been playing for years and the one she always requests I play at the end of almost every day.

"Play that song I like, Ngoc."

And it's always "for the love of a princess." 

She tells me it makes her feel nostalgic, wistful, and that all the beauty that ever existed, she's seen before, she sees through this song. 

This song gives her the words to tell me that it makes her feel like she's deeply connected with all the mountains she grew up with. The rivers and the birds and maybe that boy from her past and the yams and all the things that stabbed her bare feet. And me. I'm pulling her heart strings over here haha, and I'm leaving to study abroad soon. In less than a week. My papers aren't even together yet, YIKES, but

I'm leaving super soon.

I wanted to leave her with the memory of how to play this song by herself.

So if she misses all the memories of her youth, or of me, that she can access those feelings through music any time at all. 

Teaching her to memorize it was for naught. She doesn't know how to read music or play any instrument outside of the drums.

It was her idea and a brilliant one too; I taped numbers on the piano keys so she'll know which ones to play in order.

She soon picked it up and eventually, just a tap away from accessing it. 

All it took was being a willing and supportive teacher and she was smilinggg. And she wanted to stay longer and longer to continue practicing the 13 or 14 notes she now learned.

I would have stayed there for as long as she wanted.

I wanted to give her something new, like all the things she's given me. 

There's a lot of words I don't know in Vietnamese.

There's a lot of notes my mom doesn't know how to play.

There's a lot of good memories that slipped my dad's mind. 

And part of preserving memory is making memory. 

I don't think I'll ever forget the way my mom and I danced to Michael Buble's "Sway" tonight or the way we hopped like mad to Careless Whisper even if it was a saaaad song. 

I may not have all the important memories of my ancestors in me, but I do know that I'm a ready student.

Perhaps I'll never truly know enough. Or ask enough or the right questions. But I want to. I want to know enough to at least be a willing and supportive teacher to my kids. Know enough to pique and keep their interest so that they have the initiative to search for answers on their own, should I no longer be alive.

Just as my parents instilled in me.

Haha, I don't have kids yet, but say 10 years from now, when they exist--

I want them to feel as proud, as I do, about the Nguyen Khoa family line. About the Huynhs and their great-grand father who died plowing the infertile dirt, hopeful for food -- the ultimate act of love. About their grandma's resilience and courage and kindness, how she forgives even the most unkind of people. How she prefers Popeyes to Canes, and how their mom and aunt would quickly agree to disagree. About their grandpa who's always retelling the same stories because he wants to keep the conversation going. How he once fought and lost a war. How he drove their mom and aunt to mostly anywhere they wanted, as long as they were with their girlfriends. And their great grandma who would cook anything they wanted, perhaps the same egg and rice dish that their mom loved eating after school in her elementary school years.

I'm tearing up. 

I really am. I can't believe that there's going to be a day when I'm going to be a mother. And though these darn kids don't exist yet, I love them already. I want so much for them. I want for them all the things I had and more. I want them to know about the history I lived with, was surrounded with, was choked with. 

I can hardly believe that as I write this, that I'm going on to do some amazing things. I'm super proud and scared for myself. Study abroad in Singapore (AND IM ROOMING WITH ONE OF MY BEST FRIENDS AHHH). Internship with the State Department in the bureau I've always wanted. And.. finishing my last year at Smith. And hopefully, back to Houston.

Back to home. To the mall. To the dress shopping and the book shopping and my favorite underground curry place.

Having kids is going to be amazing, I'm just not ready for the sharing. Would I ever tell the stories well enough? Would I have enough words, no, the right words? To relay it. Would I inspire the same curiosity my parents inspired in me? 

To look up at the moon and say, "I want to stay out here, stay and stare and wonder about all these things I don't know about. So let's make a wish."

I do know they're probably going to be super cute, if they look anything like me when I was a toddler. Pft.

There's a lot to remember but I'll do well to remember it all too well.

At least for myself.

"Why doesn't grandma eat meat when there's a full moon out?" my grandkids would whisper.

"Something about her dad doing the same. Buddhist stuff," the eldest grandkid would reply.

"hehe, Bootyism," the other grandkid would snicker. That one's definitely mine.

(I'll make them Taylor Swift fans too.)

Your girl,

Ngoc

P.S. This episode was chaOTIC. It started on a fearful note of wth is going to happen to all these things that I know about my family and the history I was taught to value. All this history would just be less and less as future generations exist. AHH. 

I just want my grandparents and parents to live on. If not physically, that they live on in memory. And at some point, I won't have any control over that. We were in no one's memory when we were first born, and then after, we were. Then we die, and...yeah, hah..

okie.

Episode 73: Okay

Okay doesn't mean "okay" anymore.

It's two weeks from finals and

the state of okay

is laced with the toothiness of tiredness. 

The sluggish movements we all make from not staying in bed long enough.

Something about snow coming

and it's stark dark and not even 4:30. 

Slouching in all of Smith's couches,

I find myself

being smart enough to find a chair, hard and sturdy, instead

to keep awake.

Awake to do and think and express all these okay things keeping me awake.

The new status quo 

is exhausting yourself from constantly producing and producing shit

and being wedged between

this feeling of mediocrity

and plain bad.

And it's not even 2 pm yet. 

Am I even going to be awake enough to 

produce a shitty coherent thought

at 2 pm?

Honestly.

The little stamina I have 

is spinning

on absolute fear.

Of not finishing

not submitting

not writing and reading enough to

finish and submit.

How do we manage to freaking breathe?

And when I do, finally, do as my body does

and breathe,

I'm scared that I'm breathing for too long.

For laughing too much like we enjoy being crispy and burnt.

So cheers to today.

Another day when I tell my cute friends and my cute housemates

that I'm okay

only to proceed quickly with the word "fuck" 

in a long exhale

the kind that communicates, 

"I'm not okay at all. In fact, you probably knew that already. Maybe you're going through this too. Maybe we're both not alone in feeling this diluted version of 'okay.' Maybe we're too scared to map out everything we have to do, because if we think hard enough, that list starts to grow. 

out of control."

Is what I'm going through right now

even okay?

I'm going to start answering people with

"It's great to see you."

Instead of "how are you?"

from now on. 

Because I'd rather see people, see anyone,

than see myself 

engulfed.