i have slowly been consuming
the last traces of my mother

i hold the gurgling maw
of the vacuum as it swallows

tawny strands of hair &
dust on hardwood floor

today i read that household
dust is mostly skin

as if to say outside dust
is stranger or more spectacular

as if to say i am watching
this monster tear into

my mother again & again
& calling it “being productive”

my teeth wearing themselves
down on leftovers: rice & soup & barley

picturing my mother stooped
over the stove bloodletting

when she was here
i couldn’t wait for her to go

now i sit alone in the freezer
& eat everything

without breathing
oh i eat it all

- Ang Shuang, Asian American Writer’s Workshop

Source: https://goo.gl/PWywMn

    - not a damn thing. So let me tell you what I know
about forgiveness - this joke can go on & on, see?
I guess I’m trying to understand what makes a man 
carry guilt the same way he would a bat. How my father
after being confronted about cheating
slapped my mother, came to my room, threw my sleeping body
over his shoulder, & drove off. Who wouldn’t 
beg for a story like this? A story to point & run toward
when asked to explain every decision you’ve ever made 
regarding love. A story to blame when your hands rush
toward the exit. Till this day every headlight is a lullaby.
Imagine: waking up, but this time it isn’t your father
in the driver’s seat, but a man who holds your head
to his lap until your breath is a song pulled from his skin
how just like your father, even when you begged
wouldn’t take you home, not until he was ready to be alone. 

-Hieu Minh Nguyen

I am trying to see things in perspective.
My dog wants a bite of my peanut butter
chocolate chip bagel. I know she cannot
have this, because chocolate makes dogs
very sick. My dog does not understand this.
She pouts and wraps herself around my leg
like a scarf and purrs and tries to convince me
to give her just a tiny bit. When I do not give in,
she eventually gives up and lays in the corner,
under the piano, drooping and sad. I hope the
universe has my best interest in mind like I have
my dog’s. When I want something with my whole
being, and the universe withholds it from me,
I hope the universe thinks to herself: "Silly girl.
She thinks this is what she wants, but she
does not understand how it will hurt."

- Blythe Baird, “Theories About the Universe”