Jiaozi
Flour blooms across the kitchen counter
a dusting of snow outside–
but here, it’s dough,
warmth and laughter rising.
It’s January,
the cusp of Lunar New Year,
when lanterns sway like firelit moons,
guiding everyone home for dinner.
The house feels full again–just
shoes heaped by the door,
jackets slumped over chairs,
chatters spilling room to room.
Cousins who once darted between legs,
now tower over me–
voices deeper,
smiles just as wide.
They trade stories with the elders,
ask for hongbaos–
crisp red envelopes tucked into “treasure boxes,”
as though time itself has folded neatly away.
In the kitchen, we fold jiaozi side by side.
Mismatched aprons, sticky fingers.
My mother’s pleats are perfect–
seasoned meat cradled at the center.
She folds each wrapper in half,
presses the edges with practiced ease,
tight, plump, sealed like a secret.
Time drifts by in soft steam
as the container of filling empties,
and a quiet army of jiaozi
begins to form–
lining up neatly in rows.
A pot of cold water waits on the stove,
still and silver.
My mother drops them in,
one by one–
Each dumpling vanishing into the hush of water.
For a moment, they sink,
settling at the bottom like coins in a wishing well–
still, waiting, quiet,
as if listening.
And then–
they stir.
They lift.
They rise.
Ginger and garlic bloom with the steam,
and in that moment, we know:
the jiaozi are ready.
And so are we.
番茄炒鸡蛋 (Tomato Egg Stir-Fry)
When you’re feeling tired,
when the day runs long,
or your stomach grumbles louder than your thoughts–
This is what you do.
Take two eggs.
Maybe three, if you’re extra hungry.
And one or two tomatoes–
ripe, red, not too soft.
You’ll learn with your hands,
what “just right” feels like.
Heat the pan.
Add a little oil–
just enough to shimmer.
While it warms, whisk the eggs.
Pour them in.
Watch the edges curl like sleepy flowers.
Stir gently–
don’t overcook them.
Take a clean plate out,
gently slide the eggs in.
Set them aside.
Now, the tomatoes.
Rinse them clean.
Cut them into quarters– or eighths if they’re too big.
Whatever feels right today.
Add more oil into the pan,
and turn the heat up.
Dump the tomato pieces in.
You’ll hear the sizzle, spit, burst open with scent.
Let them sit.
Then take your spatula, and begin to press.
Not too hard–just enough to break them down,
so their juices come out sweet.
Once that’s done,
add the eggs back in,
a pinch of salt is just enough.
Then stir fry it all together,
until yellow and red swirl like sunrise in the pan.
Scoop it into a bowl.
Eat while it’s hot.
Fill your belly.
Rest your heart.
Between Cups
On some mornings,
when frost lingers in the air,
and I’m cocooned in blankets,
I boil water for a cup of oolong tea.
Warmth drifts through me like a slow tide–
not too sweet,
its roasted breath cuts the fog,
its green edge steadies me into the day.
On others,
when my head feels heavy,
and my eyelids cling shut,
I reach for an iced vanilla latte.
Ice clinks in my tall plastic cup,
condensation pearling down,
like rain against a windowpane.
The first sip jolts me awake–
sweet cream folding over bitter espresso,
sunlight folding over hard concrete.
At breakfast, my fork hovers over scrambled eggs–
a cadence learned in bright American kitchens.
At dinner, I trade forks for chopsticks,
lifting noodles in one practiced sweep–
a gesture carried across oceans,
a skill passed down in silence,
worn smooth with memory.
I move between English and Chinese.
My tongue dances in two styles:
jiaozi followed by strawberry shortcake,
banter with my friends in English,
then the evening call home in Chinese.
Yet there are hours when the passage between them falters,
when I feel pressed to remain on only one side.
Some days, I ache for China–
for voices fluent in my first language without pause or translation,
for the hum of a city stitched with earliest memories.
Other days, I imagine a life here–
beneath oak trees that scatter gold across brick paths,
in libraries lit with fluorescent hush,
my future unfurling like a campus map,
corridors branching in every direction,
each road inscribed with my name.
Wherever I stand–between cups, between languages, between bites–
I am not divided but doubled.
I hold these worlds, turn them in my hands,
align their edges bit by bit,
until one day they meet–
not as fragments forced together,
but as a single shape,
seamless in its imperfection,
whole in its multiplicity.
Bedtime Biopsies
[1:17 AM] My phone becomes an oracle with poor bedside manner.
If nothing appears, it is a verdict–a polite cosmic hint to go to bed.
But deceive myself long enough until the quiet coagulates,
a slow architecture cinching rib to rumor, hour to hemorrhage.
Hopeless romantics practice surgical arithmetic:
excise the surplus, cauterize the wanting–
mandible rearticulated, adipose erased, waist synched into compliance.
Yeah. That feels right.
Eventually the fat will incinerate, the epidermis will glow,
and someone may, briefly, almost, love you.
I become a message in a bottle drifting across the digital ocean,
each pixel an act of coercion: behold me / ignore me / decide quickly.
[2:59 AM] She sees herself from above, surveillance angel over her ruin:
Embarrassment is always secondhand.
I hug my eyelids shut. Enough. Enough.
I bury the phone. But light percolates, seeping through the margins,
like a small, glowing gravestone: my love for you.
If the device registers my indifference–
then perhaps, by some perverse osmosis, I will attenuate too.
Maybe I’ll Stay
Maybe I am better off alone.
Maybe I shouldn’t call mom.
She’d answer on the first ring, voice laced with quiet panic,
a trembling thread stretched too thin across miles–
She’d gather words like loose fabric,
fold them into soft reassurances,
as if love alone could stitch the distance shut.
Maybe I shouldn’t talk to Dad.
His sigh would settle heavy in my chest,
a weight I am too familiar with.
I’d hear the hesitation, the silent arithmetic of his burdens,
and I wouldn’t dare add to the sum.
Maybe I shouldn’t confide in my brother.
He would glance away, tilt his head–no words, a quiet retreat.
His voice, once sharp with certainty, now dull, eroded by time and distance.
I’d ask something important, but his mind would drift, lost in the tide of his own thoughts.
Maybe I shouldn’t tell my friends.
Their laughter would soften, conversations bending around me,
hands cradling something fragile.
I don’t want to be the person they speak to gently, as if I might shatter.
Maybe if I leave, the dinner table would feel emptier,
silence would settle between the clinking of forks.
Maybe I should stay–because even in the quiet, even in the dark,
love lingers, patient and unwavering,
like how my mother cuts apples, her right hand guiding the peel,
long spirals unraveling but never breaking–
like how my dad brings back stuffed animals from work trips around the world,
explaining their origins, his way of saying: I thought of you–
like how my brother watches my trashy shows with me,
laughing at their absurdity, munching on the snacks I asked him to buy–
like how my friends come running towards me in school
embracing me as if we didn’t talk just yesterday,
whispering their made-up scenarios with senior boys–
waiting for me to remember that I have always belonged.
And maybe, just maybe, I will reach for it.
Let it fill the hollow spaces,
let it remind me that even the lonely have roots.
Happy Jina
Jina steps out on a Saturday morning,
the world still waking, coffee warm in her hands.
She walks slowly, freely, each step a promise–
to savor this morning, to let the quiet settle into her bones.
Inside, the canvas waits, a blank bite, ready to be devoured.
She paints with the kind of hunger that comes from knowing what’s inside–is worth spilling.
The brush dances, colors drip and mingle, strokes collide, a delicious mess.
It’s not about making it perfect, just about making it hers.
Later her car hums along the road, the sky a molten gold,
then fading into purple velvet.
She jams to beats drifting from the radio, each song sweeter than the last.
She drives, not to get anywhere, but to be in this moment.
She hits the gym, muscles warming, stretching, a slow burn that feels good.
Her body moves, slow and steady–a reminder that she is hers.
A text from a friend–their words, a swirl of laughter, the kind that bubbles up without trying.
Their connection is effortless, like sharing dessert, two spoons, no rules.
Just easy, just real.
She meets her sister for dinner. The food arrives–Caesar salad, crisp and cool,
fries crackle, golden and hot. Diet Coke fizzing in her mouth–
hydrating her from the conversations that never end.
Each bite is perfectly balanced, like everything in this moment is just right.
Back at home, freshly washed sheets welcome her like a friend.
The bed embraces her, cool and crisp. She lingers, wrapped in the quiet comfort of nothing.
As the sun goes to bed, and her list for the day is, alas, completed,
she sinks deeper into her mattress. Everything is in its place.
She breathes easy, like the first taste of something, long-awaited, satisfying.
Her eyelids fall shut, already dreaming of the next coffee–that greets her tomorrow morning.
I Think I Know Her
I see a girl, what’s her name? I don’t know, I forgot.
She lives under a mask, treats living like task, whispers, I’m fine when asked.
Her heart clenches seeing her dad’s hair turn to grey,
her fingers trace her mom’s wrinkles, a silent map to the end of this route.
She cries alone in airports, flying into the ether,
scrolling through photos, tears punching through the screen–
trying to swallow the faces she misses.
Her emotions take stage, an endless, unraveling play:
secrets locked tight to spare others worry, so fluent in lying it feels like truth.
Even words betray her, now strangers, now weights too heavy to hold.
She drives away after seeing her grandfather for the last time–
the car silent, but screaming.
She rolls dice on her birthday, wishing for happiness, odds never in her favor.
Her phone becomes a silver cocoon, numbing her as others hibernate with their cubs.
She’s a thief, stealing glances at strangers’ bank accounts, dreaming of wealth she’ll never attain.
She’s an artist, painting only in black and white, colors always out of reach.
She’s a race-car driver, with no gas, no wheels–even with fuel, she would have nowhere to go.
She’s a dreamer, trapped in fantasy, waking only to fall asleep again.
She’s a poet, with no pen, yet the paper bleeds red.
She’s never been an optimist. Every laugh she forces is armor–
an inspectable shield she hopes will hold.
She wonders how long her passengers will stay–
each step onto her train a prelude to goodbye.
She imagines the worst endings for every story she’s in.
Is it failure that’s taught her this, or the sharp-edged words others have plunged into her heart?
It hits me.
I call out, “Jina!” and run towards her, arms stretched wide,
pulling her frame into an embrace,
Her glass shoulders piercing into my skin; I cry out in pain, meeting her gaze–bewildered and sad.
Before I can protest, her skin shatters into grains, falling into a soft cascade.
A heap of sand at my feet.
