earthquake season

rabbits will warn us, but we will ignore their warnings,

most of which will be too small to be felt.

magic markers will determine plate tetonics, two-dollar

packets of gum will cost $4.99, murderers will claim

the homicide was consensual, and at Christmas time, the best pears

we send to your grandparents will smell like sweat

on feet.

actually,

everything might end

up ok. the ceiling and walls and

antibiotics are in place, sad people

can be fixed, and from a distance, we can see

grandma walking home holding a huge leg of ham.

she says, she

says,

roses are a kind of people,

smiling is an kind of spring:

a contemplation allowing steam

to escape from below the surface.

she really meant to say,

I really hope I don't get the swine flu.

school season

mother said one time I came home from 5th grade really bummed because I had a substitute teacher and she sucked. I don't even remember who my real 5th grade teacher was. I just remember standing in line after recess this one time, finally gathering enough courage to tell the kids to stop making fun of this fat kid named Robert Qumar.

Later in 6th grade I would come to hate this Qumar kid because he was socially awkward and liked Sailor Moon, and boys weren't supposed to like Sailor Moon. I liked Sailor Moon.

I think my 6th grade math teacher was gay. He was small and diabetic and sadly loved chocolate.

I think my 6th grade homeroom teacher was mormon. I have no basis for this other than the fact that one time he used a mormon website to show us an example for our genealogy project, and that he was very pale.

We made fun of our 7th grade science teacher, Mrs. Willensky, for being obese and having a habit of bouncing in her seat. This might have been due to a restless leg syndrome that made her bounce her heel up and down constantly, but we didn't care. She had a mean face and called Jolly Ranchers Jolly Rogers. I heard later she got liposuction. And that she finally noticed a kid laughing and pointing at her bouncing, stopped abruptly in embarrassment. I'm not sure if this was before or after her liposuction.

In 6th grade when I hung out with other people during lunch, Bonnie Tran stepped on my ID card in the locker room. The absurdity of this malicious act confused and bothered me the entire day.

After sex-ed all of us rushed out of the classroom disgusted with our bodies. Popular kids' names never get made fun of, even if it sounded like 'semen'.

Danny had this backpack that said "Bad Cop/No Donut" and I had no idea why other kids thought it was funny. I get it now, but I still don't think it's funny.

Cory Woodall and I had the same schedule in 7th grade and we joked that someday we'll find each other at our future workplaces, with the same work schedule. Then we reminisced about an old computer game featuring Putt-Putt. Secretly I wished we had the same schedule for the rest of school.

One time we made a big deal that she wore a skirt one day and she was embarrassed, having been labeled a tomboy up until then. I wondered why she wanted to rebel against it because I was always jealous of the tomboy label, as if it gave the wearer a sort of power against the weaknesses associated with the regular girl label. It would be long before I'd realize it was as much of a stifling label as any.

In 4th grade we watched a documentary on Big Foot and I was scared out of my mind. I still do not understand the educational value of such a film.

work in progress draft 2 - Monsoon season

From the light of the horizon, the term sunset is under fierce debate
between the glass of our balcony door and the electricity of the skyline.
Your eyes of fog and ink have invented them
in the most profound awareness of the moment.

Rain and air is dangerously thin and terrible outside.
I open the door, and the typhoon becomes my hair.
. . .

We sympathize with the inhaling and exhaling of my white curtains,
the shapes of clouds, and the leftover sand in the corners of pockets.
Our existence begins to disintegrate, watching the faces of our mothers grow younger and
younger in a magnificent slideshow—the richness of hue, the definition of wrinkles melt
into a blur.

The colors of the monsoon coagulate into a deep and muddy purple;
I won’t hold you, not even when you cry.
. . .

Later, I’d almost lose my sense of belonging.
You’d trade me in for a sun coin, if you hadn’t already.
One to hold in your white palm, cold as if alive. And it’d stay inside your pocket, inside your hand, where it will never get wet. We call each other by the possessive forms but neither of us will belong to each other.
You will never forgive me for writing this poem.

The tips of my fingers meet the tips of your fingers when we match our hands for size.
Time lifts in an impossible feat of physics, a few hours is already the air
holding up a Boeing 747, its beverage carts, and the 3 different languages.

On the ride back, I’d dream cartoons. I sit in a lake,
wishing for July.
. . .

When I look up, the fireworks of the sun blinds me through a million prisms of water.
When I look down from the balcony, my hair falls in before me in the direction of the rain.
Warm rain smothers like love.

Lightning strikes, naked and bold a few feet from the railing—
I fall back, pulling a muscle in my leg.
You are asleep in my bed—dreaming of explosions,
grandfather, and the Nationalist Army.
. . .

When Taiwan is submerged—
everyone gets a prize.

I’ll come back to see you
but I promise nothing.

Direction of diffusion, temporary wholes

I.

I remember liquids, especially.
By passive, I mean not
only a general curiosity. Nobody can be constantly moved from one place
to another.

To be sure, I directed a steady gaze
at the moment. At one end
I suppose, I was

walking in the wind for stories, inches,
miles. I classified
the movement in the arties
as the most real.

At the other end, how desperately
slow was the deepening into a
subjection, a disassembly line of
memories, a dull throb-
bing sensation.

It all happened.

The sun that envelops
color, simultaneously spent my brother, sung
into the snow.

I said, “wait”

II.

Even now, at an instant of yes and of course,
you may be
missing.

In an aroma lose my sense of the definite, but
the answer matters. Subject to
modulation, I still choose to feed you,
even if courage only comes to you

in dreams. Now we are
high in the sleep, together
in this light-filled room

and still, the half of you in the white
is blinding.

So

There was a show (the show was terrible) It was a graceful lake, but it did not look like a girl

or a boy.

work in progress

Rain and is thin, and the term sunset is under fierce debate between the glass of our balcony door and the electricity of the skyline. But your small and easy eyes, made of fog and ink, have invented in them the most profound awareness of the moment. I open the balcony door, and the typhoon becomes my hair.

Later, I’ll almost lose my sense of belonging. You’d trade me in for a sun coin, if you hadn’t already. One to hold in your white palm, cold as if alive. And it’d stay in your pocket. Every time you’d feel it between your fingers remember the gold glint off the clean edge.

The glint will remind you of a tin

time,

Time leaves and the ocean on the orange horizon is licking up the sun into lines, but it is the sky who has the largest, darkest mouth. no one wanted this,

sitting in a vat of cold
oil, wishing for a Friday.

Positive Negative Spaces or Just an excerpt of a mishmash story 1 for LTWR100

The next morning Thanh wakes from a terrible dream about growing penises on her body. It was terrible and disgusting so she tried to forget all about it, but parts of it felt so uncannily real that she would rewind her mind to start thinking about it again. She would remember that one part where she attempted to piss standing up. She was surprised she didn’t piss in her sleep. But it must have been because of that odd position she was in on the couch that made her dream this, and she also had no blanket to cover her.

Jonathan had already left for work. There's a note on the coffee table from him, but she ignores it. She called in sick and fell asleep on the couch again.

It was right about yesterday when she realized she had to leave. She was walking on the way home and heard children yelling. Two elementary school boys were fighting each other in an empty lot covered in a copper sheen.

“Hey!” she yelled. “You two, stop that!”

She grabbed them away from each other. They must have been in first grade. They lunged at each other again, wrestling free from her grip.

“Give it back! It’s mine!”

“No! Finder’s keepers!”

“I saw it first!”

The kids started tumbling toward the ground again, and Thanh desperately reached for the object from their hands and pulled the thing away from them.

Something felt wrong. She stood between them, all eyes on her clenched fist. Thanh slowly opened her hands to reveal half of a lizard’s body. Suddenly she felt a sinking feeling, an urge to pee. She shuddered; staring shocked at the nasty entrails running off her wrist. One of the boys took advantage of the odd slowness of the moment and snatched the thing away, laughing, while the other one chased him. Thanh sat down to let the nausea pass, and wiped the goo off her hand with the grass and flowers. She imagined the dying lizard in her hand again, trying to collect some sympathy for the animal she just murdered. Instead, she just felt relief.

I need to move out, she thought, and then laid her head down in the grass. The daisies above her were terrifically metallic in their sheen.

rabbit update 6

It ran in our house! My grandparents caught it in the morning, stuck it in a bucket and told us to drive far far away and let it go. We went to church and children were amused by the furry living being, who was probably scared as fuck in its white hell hole.

On the way my mom said, "Grandpa always says he's annoyed the rabbit eats our flowers and veggies, but whenever the rabbit doesn't come at it's scheduled time of day grandpa turns to me and says...Ah? ...where is the rabbit?
where did he go. I wonder if something happened..."

So we wonder if Grandpa hates or loves the rabbit, but i realize the many things we love we hate doing, just a little bit.
People with anger problems say they hate being angry, but can't stop when they start bombing. Some depressed people say they hate to be sad, but they keep on rehashing the things that make them cry. Crying and yelling are kind of orgasmic in their catharsis. And in the most wonderful and terrible ways, it is the things we find repugnant the things we keep needing. In order for the prince to love the princess that much more, he must slay a terrible dragon. Or else she's just a common whore on the 10th floor of some random building. Those who love resolution must also need conflict.

Whatever this rabbit is my Grandpa will miss waiting every evening and morning to chase it away.

Goodbye. Sorry for the scary car ride. Watch out for coyotes and cars and shit.

Ike Sampson, Jerry Flaherty, and Faulkner Guo

Bryce and I play this game when we're bored where we try to guess the names and deepest desires of random people we see on campus or wherever we are.

When I dropped him off at LA, it was fucking hard cause I don't know too many latino or ethnic names. LA is like level 10 for that game, while UCSD is like beginner level.

UCSD: "Connie Fung. Noah Le. Steven Chiang."
LA: "Holy Fuck that's ah... like a Vijay?...Jose? Monica? Rosa? Guadalupe? Huevos?"

Oh man. And then I start feeling racist so it's no fun. Anyway, since he's at USC I've been emailing him and I wanted to do this thing were we come up with a character profile and a story with it.



So Ike Sampson's got the build of Mr. Rogers. He's old, maybe 55, and he's fixing a huge, 4 ft tall, wide Xerox. The parts are on the floor, and he's adjusting his glasses, drilling when the copier finally makes a noise. Ike's relieved; it's printing something. Is it working? It spits out millions and millions of copies of someones ass, and then prints out a lot of random websites, and then some dirty pictures. He stands there with no facial expression for a couple of beats. He rubs his forehead, slightly frustrated. He sees a pretty girl in the porno picture on the ground. He turns his head to look at it. He then looks around for people, adjusts his glasses, and kneels down to pick it up.

4 hours and 23 minutes earlier a dark room- to suited men turn on the light, it's the same office space. We see Jerry Flaherty (chubby, talll) and Faulkner Guo (nerdy asian guy), and they're sneaking in after work. They come in drunk and recently laid off. Faulker gets on the computer and says he's going to send millions of emails of gay porn to his boss. He actually doesn't get to the gay porn and get stuck, distracted at the regular-old, boobs and pussies porn. Jerry says Oh man print some for me.
...
Next shot they are trying to vandalize the place, but cannot do it because they are too straight-laced. They try to throw papers around but they eventually reason that they are important papers. They eventually just TP one lame plastic topiary in the corner.
...
They try to break the boss's mug but they cant because they're scared. They try, but never let it go. Faulkner says lets test drive it with this other cup. They drop a small random mug, and it makes a loud noise and chips a little. They are terrified and convince themselves maybe there are other things they can do.
...
They try to steal things from other people's desks. Jerry says, oh man i love Angela, I cant steal her post its, she always brings pie on fridays. Faulker says yea, lets get back at Thomas. He's a jackass. They get to Thomas' desk and see pictures of his family in his desk and figure they don't want to steal from him either.
...
They see alcohol in their boss's office. They try to open the locked door. They fail and shrug it off.
...
Jerry and Faulker sit in their adjacent, now empty cubicles.
Jerry says now what. Faulkner says, Man we should have planned this out better.
Jerry's eyes light up. My Porn! he says. He looks at the printer/copier, the same one Ike Sampson was working on. The porn isnt printing. He pounds on it. He opens the copier top. He has no idea how this machine works, actually. Then he gets a great idea.
Wait, I got it! says Jerry. i gotta do this at least once in my life. ooohh man. it's like the movies.
He pulls down his pants.
Faulkner: whoa man. dude, what thing-in-the-movies? Not gay porn, is it
Jerry ignors Faulkner and pulls down his boxers.
F; WHOA MAN, give me a warning at least, Jesus Christ! (he looks away)
Jerry does not mind, he's got one thing he's thinking about. he's climbing to sit on top of the copier. His butt is surprisingly LARGER than the surface of of the copier. you can see his flesh spilling over the top. He tries to look for the copy button but it should be under his fat leg
MAN, Jerrry says, Faulkner! how does this thing work! come here!
Faulner: dude I am going no where near your white ass, Jer.
Jerry: COME on we have done NOTHING today this is IT.
F is reluctant.
Jerry: Seriously. just come over and figure out how to copy my ass.
F thinks about it.
You know what, F says, you're right. All these years (uber long monologue about how it fucking sucked to work here, how its stupid that every time he gets laid off he has to go to a company exactly the same and to the same fucking thing, Jerry urges him on with "Hell yeah"'s and "Amen"s")
He finishes with, "I've kissed so much ass and taken so much shit these years, and if i have to see your ass while i'm doing this, well fuck it! I am a free man now I can choose whose fuckin ass I am dealin with.
Jerry: I am honored to be your friend.
F: I respect you.
J: Me too.
Faulkner lifts up J's leg hesitatingly, presses some buttons. It is all dramatic. The copier starts going! There is light underneath moving! They high five.
The sounds of the copier start... and then...slowly...fade.... The copier dies, crushed a bit under Jerry's weight. they hear a large crack.
...

The next shot they are standing in front of the broken copier, the glass on top cracked, sobered up.

Well. Faulkner says. I think that's good enough.
J pats F's shoulder.

rabbit update 5

Grandpa pops in from the back door into the living room with a big crooked smile.
"Lailai! Our little friend is on time and reporting for duty! Hahaha..."
He goes out again.
I hear him through the door, shooing away the rabbit angrily.