New Year's Resolutions

Make sweet swirly lurv to a brown girl.

That is all.

Christmas Swag

- one blue long-sleeve shirt

- one white sheer long-sleeve shirt

- one black winter coat

- one blue undershirt

- one blue Betsey Johnson necklace

- one pair of dark blue skinny pants

Me like, me like.

Baby It's Cold Outside

Skip trip to Sugar mountain for Christmas weekend, but all I really want to do is curl up in a cabin somewhere in North Georgia with two men, one of whom I haven't even met yet.

I can dream.

He...

- laces our fingers together as he rocks back and forth

- kisses away the words in my mouth mid-stream

- cradles the back of my neck with his hand

- sucks the skin on the crook of my neck

- pins me under him to tickle my sides

- grabs fistfuls of my hair to inhale

- hooks my legs on his arms

- flips me over

- and fucks

- so well

- so, so

- fuck

- me

Reckless

Impromptu midnight meetup at a nearby town for an unspecified amount of time during which possible sexy things could happen even though I have only ever interacted with you via the internet?

Hokay, sure.

BE BACK LATER BIATCHES.

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

Thank the goddess I finally got laid.

Sure, it's another white boy (didn't I say I would try to hook up with someone more Colorful?!), but Lord have mercy can he bone. And he's bi too. Come on, there's always an exception, amirite? And there were piercings. And laughs. And sighs. And groans.

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH I NEED TO SEE HIM ONE MORE TIME BEFORE THE PARENTS RETURN FROM THEIR TRIP--

Flip a Coin

You're not worth it, Mr. Ginger-Haired Boy from Class. Not a bit. You're not worth my time, my self-respect, my integrity, my principles--nothing but my shame and self-loathing. Fortunately, I have been trying my damned-nest to improve on both fronts since I transferred schools. There have been several close calls, one of which had the us shirtless in your room, but my self-control prevailed every time. How could I ever sleep with someone who doesn't respect women? Who calls breasts "titties" and makes rape jokes disguised as dick-sucking jokes? I was bored and desperate and horny and lonely. Now I realize that it is much better to be all those things than to sleep with you for a single night.

So go ahead and send me booty call after booty call. I will only save those messages to laugh at them later.

I am so over you.

Life-Changing Moment

How to eat pussy like a champ

A Day in The Life of

Every morning I wake up, I stretch my legs. I yawn. Raise my arms above my head, twist and pop. Crack my neck. I remember that I'm starting another day, another week, another year, as me:

Not white.

Not male.

Not straight.

I take inventory of the privileges I do have and count my blessings.

Walking out of the house isn't the hardest part. Sometimes, there's nothing hard about my day at all. I make my errands, drive around town, and interact with people. I may even go an entire week without having to fake a smile or hold in my words.

That isn't always the case though.

All it takes is a look, a word, a transparent thought--and I remember why I would rather stay inside my room in front of the laptop. Or the words and looks and thoughts subtly build at the back of my mind instead over a period of time, mutating into something ugly and crystallized that chafes on my knee-jerk defenses until I can't ignore it. I must call it out.

For the most part, I keep silent to keep the peace to keep my mental health intact.

What do you see first when you look at me? I'm a girl. And I'm not white. Without being aware of it, your mind neatly files me away under "Asian," so that if you refer to me later in my absence to someone else, what you say doesn't come out as, "I met this girl the other day." It's "I met this Asian girl the other day." I am labeled and packaged for your convenience. I am different. I am Other. I have been Othered all my life, and I let this unchanging fact roll over my shoulders.

It's just another day, in the life of.

Something New

You and I, apart

Our patience is a virtue

So not now--someday

Finals I Will Defeat You

I started writing when I was in middle school. A friend had shown me something she had written, a short fanfiction piece based in the Harry Potter universe, and I was hooked. Initially, I stayed in the world of fanfiction, bending established canon of various works such as Harry Potter and the Outlander series according to my own whims and predilections. I could make these characters do whatever—say whatever—I want. It was the agency and control I wielded in this imaginary world of mine that appealed to me so much. Eventually, by high school, I was applying this to original fiction.

I write in conjunction to my amateur artwork. Every time I start a new piece, I first sketch the character in my notebooks. I give her a sharp nose, a thin mouth, curly hair—anyone can tell when I have a new idea because suddenly my character is everywhere: on the backs of receipts, old homework assignments, discarded envelopes, you name it. I create shadows of her friends and family, mold her personality in the lines of her shoulders, and hint at her tragic past in scribbled asides. When I finally sit down in front of the computer, she already has an entire history before I type a single word.

The moment my narrative comes to life is in the first line of dialogue, a personal belief that reveals me as a writer more suited to crafting screenplays and short stories. I have no fondness for developing long, twisting plotlines or sending socio-political messages. I will even go further to add that my work is more like a series of character studies with generous doses of romance and eroticism. Magnifying glass in hand, I hold my people in close examination, teasing apart layers of motivation and feelings and tensions to find underlying truths about them.

As a result, I excel in dialogue and understated scenes, but lack in most other areas of writing. I registered for this workshop in the hopes that I would improve in introspection and theme-making—the “heavy stuff,” as I call it. After a few months of intensive practice, I can thankfully say that my writing has made progress. I am no longer as fearful or apprehensive as I once was about approaching serious subject matter with an equally serious hand, and nor have I lost any of the skills I had to begin with. Best of all, I was given the privilege of reading (and learning from) other people’s work.

A quick glance at my final portfolio shows that I tend to focus on the sexual and romantic. It is a celebration of human connection in relation to the horizontal tango from a woman’s perspective. While nowhere near original, my work manages to be unique in that my voice—a young, bisexual woman of color—is a voice not often heard in the literary world. Perhaps one day, I can inspire others like myself to do the same because our point of view is just as valuable, and enlightening.

Softshock

I decided to watch a Youtube video tonight about Singaporean firefighters because I'm horny and I missed you. I clicked on the first one I saw: fan-made, but with nice production values.

You were in it.

Halfway through the video, you appeared on the screen out of nowhere, and I jumped several feet in my chair. You weren't supposed to be in it. You don't hear me complaining though.

Obviously, this brought a lot of things to the forefront.

*****

Your song, by the way, is "Softshock" by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I listened to their It's Blitz! album during my week there, but this song reminds me of you the most. I should have spent more time writing about that whole experience, but similar to so many other hot-button people in my life (Old Geezer, Ex, Karen, Cat, etc.), I needed time for all of the feelings and thoughts to sit. Age. Mature. Complete. I think I'm ready now, or as ready as I'll ever be.

No white girl would look at you twice here. Let's get that out of the way first. You're not a tall, white man with money or a muscular, black man with a big penis. You're short, skinny, and wear glasses. In other words, just right for me. You go unnoticed so people like me can snatch you away. You're dorky and awkward around women, masking your insecurities with bravado and cockiness. I don't mind. It's endearing because I see right through it.

You changed the game forever. I mean, I knew someone would eventually come round to shake up my preconceived notions on romance and sex, but I didn't think it would happen so soon. But there you were, perched on the edge of that beach chair with a beer in hand and a smirk on your face while I described--with hand gestures--merely one of my many sexual fantasies. We had only met hours before, but I was telling you all of this anyway. Like we had known each other for the longest time.

The connection was instant, electrifying, and suddenly everything felt new and familiar. (Was it normal to experience such a heady rush?) I brushed my fingers over the muscles on your arm, giddy and restless with excitement. (Were we going too fast?) You grinned back, eyes lingering on my dress straps. (What if I was making a mistake?) The day dragged on until I finally led you back to my room at night, with my laptop screen as a stand-in for romantic candlelight. (fuck it, let's see where this goes.) And for the record, it wasn't perfect; nothing is. But it was so damn close.

Those five days existed in a pocket of time outside the life I've returned to. On some days, I don't believe they were ever real. On others, I know better. They either passed too slowly or too quickly, depending on what we were doing at the moment. I don't even remember who else I interacted with. Just you. We had more in common that I realized, or dare to hope. You saw my weirdness in all its naked glory and chose to stay. Whatever I proposed, your only answer was "yes." How could I not have grown fond of you? How could I not?

If only there had been more time to see what we could have evolved into. When I conjure up the image of us tangled in my sheets, sticky and sated, laughing at each other, the memory tastes sweet, dissolving like sugar on the tip of my tongue to savor and hold in my mouth until there is only the ghost-taste left as a nostalgic reminder. I recall the piggyback ride you gave me as we ran down an empty street at midnight. I remember the weight of you and smile to myself.

You made me believe. You made me doubt. You tumbled into my life and just as swiftly winked out. A softshock to my soft side.