Category: Non-Fiction
-
red string
What is red found home on the tender parts of my joints. I had woken up one morning to its existence without invitation or explanation. Then again, fate does not explain. In fact, fate is what we call the things we cannot explain…
-
only enough when in hell
When the flames die down and all that is left are the ashes, do not expect them to arrange into an apology. Do not weep for me with both your feet on solid earth. I walked in here of my own volition. But you were the one who paved the road…
-
more knife, less breath
But you still flinch when nothing is raised. Wait for an angry entrance succeeding the slam of a door. Brace for a lash that won’t arrive. Anticipate the burn of a fire that will never be rekindled…
-
chasing rabbits ’25
What are we if not a vessel of opportunities waiting to be realized? Nothing gives your name more meaning than your responding to it, and purpose isn’t something to be sought but something that demands we show up…
-
island daughter
Someone calls my name—the one that fit my mouth when I was younger, when crying came easily, when this island cried with me—and it comes out two syllables instead of three, just the way my parents had intended. Cheng Jie. There is no Allison here. I answer out of equal parts muscle memory and guilt…
-
face up
The slate is clean but the same cannot be said for my hands. You have no idea the kind of flood it took to get me here. The kind that skipped over everyone’s bed but mine; the kind whose violence is selective at best, blind at worst…
-
24.
It’s my birthday. I wait by the phone for my loneliness to dissipate. I wait by the phone. I wait for my loneliness. I wait to dissipate. I wait…
-
selective erasure
Ask me where erased things go. They stay beneath the surface of the paper, never to be seen again. Success is to view the usage of an eraser more as inching closer to getting something right than making a mere mistake…
-
prying oysters
Is all this prying worth it if I lose so much in the process? I long for some force to tell me whether this is a rite of passage for all my peers. Dare I be greedy and want things to stay the same while I hold new pearls in my scabbed palms?
-
put down the cigarette
Anger is always best declared in your native tongue. The justification of anger, however, is always better expressed in a second language that you have learned detached from emotions, structured by grammar and logic. But right now, neither language is working…
-
one-woman fountain show
I refuse to humiliate myself by asking for attention, but my eyes betray me. They yearn so terribly to be seen by some other. So when I cry, make a wish, why don’t you? And if you prove sincere, maybe the women before me will grant it to you as you put your hands around…
-
june bug
In the kitchen, a bug lands on the backsplash. I wave it away and watch it attempt to fly out of the window. It will no sooner be consumed by a bigger bug. I return to the cutting board and curve my fingers over the onion. June will soon be gone…
-
how to eat a mermaid
The mermaid sits shimmering on my plate. Her tail swishes lightly and her scales glimmer under the sunlight. She’s been out of the water for long enough and should return. The fact that she cannot return has rendered her helpless and resigned. This is the perfect opportunity for me to begin my feast…
-
playing fetch & victim
I don’t know the answers, but maybe you do. And if you do, you know to find me in the depths of the meadow, where I’m throwing sticks with a dog that no longer resembles a dog. And if you do, but you spare no desire to free me from my inked chains, I will…
-
in pursuit of greatness
I’ll take every congratulations and sew them into wings, thank you very much. That way, even if I were to be cast out of the clouds one day, I’ll fall back on my triumphs…
-
maybe your legacy is hotpot
You are growling like a starved animal for the truth so I’ll throw you the meat. Open wide and bare your canines. I want to see you bite off more than you can chew. Have a cup of water on the side in case you find it hard to swallow. If you choke, do not…
-
love is in the air (and tradition will shoot it down)
How much are you willing to betray for love? Ultimately, that’s what love is, isn’t it? An act of betrayal—or even the wish to betray. I don’t mean betrayal of your loved one, but rather the betrayal of your parents, your traditions, your religion, your country’s laws, and even yourself sometimes…
-
rice bowl ’24
What does it mean to use chopsticks the ‘wrong’ way? Is it simply a testament to my lack of phalanx coordination? Is it that I am offending generations of tradition? Does this fault dictate who I am as a person—and if so, what does it say about me?
-
clean up on aisle 23!
Twenty-three is quiet. Subtle. It ripples but does not make waves. It’s a dance, not a war. I have spent so many years learning and now I’m applying, living. I’m done being broken and I’m ready to write love into existence, even if it draws blood…
-
where the seine sings
Love here is more than an affair of romance—it is an affair of life, of simply being without reason or rhyme. Fill my pockets with stone and let me walk into the Seine! I’ll drown and come back to tell you what it is like to be in love with life…
-
ruins and revelries
The sweltering heat is perhaps the primary thing I take from this holiday. The way the sun found me under gelato shop awnings, in ebbing gondolas, before sacred paintings, and within historic ruins to kiss my skin. Italy, you sweet creature, how will I ever look at the world the same?
-
this is me trying
Aside from that voice in your head, who else has ever told you you are not where you are meant to be? ‘Society’ is not a valid response, and likely, you’ll find that the answer is ‘no one’…
-
summer affairs
Summer is when things begin to rot, the most forgiving season of all because everyone knows everyone has something rotting in their chest of drawers. And so I urge you: atone for your dreams and not your sins so long as the sun is out…
-
pick up the phone, i still miss you
Yes, you can bury a paper in the earth but it will not grow back into a tree; I can put you back in your cradle but you will not regain your innocence. There is so much you will be but you have forgotten so much of who you were…
Allison's Archives 