Taiwan is the Sweltering Heat where stray cats purr and street food hisses. Stinky tofu stinks of unassumed deliciousness, daring the foreigner to try it. Umbrellas are used on sunny days but can’t protect you from getting wet, so changing clothes three times a day is a must. The clothes first stained with sweat are then hung up to dry on the rusty chains crisscrossing the balcony, a constant victim of the perpetrator that is the weather. - Sappy
May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month
Ching Chang Chong Ching-ching is the sound of a cash register: the sound of money. It’s the sound of an American dream achieved by a Chink. But the Chink named Chang dreamed a pipe dream of fame only to pave a track to gold not meant for oriental freaks, because they were 虫, insects, and an invasive species from the Pacific named the yellow peril and came in terrifying rising tides that never grew weak. - Sappy
I Bet Your Parents Made Love in a Bed of bright marigolds and cosmos. That would explain your innate stubbornness, like when you sprouted in May, too eager to grant your mother the sweet poison of a lily of the valley, which is motherhood. Although it’s not as beautiful as the red tulip she raised, I hope she likes the hydrangeas I gave. I’ve been wanting to gift more. While their brilliant red still doesn’t compare to the adorable pink blooming on you, Look, the carnations we planted have beautifully bloomed. I’m determined to grow peonies with you, too. I’ve already decided that when I lie in my deathbed, nobody shall give me white lilies. Instead, they’ll give me poppies, for the wound you left when you left me: Its medicine will grant me peace in death, just like the peace your lavender gave me. - Sappy
This poem was selected for PoetTreeTown2023
I know I’m indecisive, but I think I know how I feel. I feel just a little confused, but I know how I feel, I think. I think I feel too much, I know. This is just how I am. I am, I believe, how I like. I feel like I think I know I am how I like, I believe. - Sappy
This poem has been posted outside Avalon Cafe & Bakery for PoetTreeTown2024
Longitude To see past the horizon, your poker face blocking the farthest secrets, is what I wish upon a star. No matter the angle, your one-sidedness makes me curious about your constellation of 88 thoughts. Are you a Scorpio? I examine telescopically, but the milky way, the nebulas in your eyes draw me over the moon, and the slightest glance away carries seasonal depression. So before this unknowing atmosphere suffocates me, although my heart beating ultraviolet already is, I’m confessing out of the blue. - Sappy
On Reserve I’m not very well-read. Especially when it comes to you. You’re a closed book, whereas I belong in the children’s section. Thankfully, you’re a bookworm. You didn’t judge me by my cover when I checked out at the library, unable to take my eyes off the page and too engrossed in the story of you and me that I plotted out. I may be illiterate, but in my books, I’m a pretty good author, though I wasn’t always good with words. Talking to the text had me on the edge of my seat. I wanted to book it: the ticket to the next chapter in our lives, until the falling action and resolution scared me. To drown out the words, you gifted me a photo album. The best possible genre for our favorite memories: dancing in the library at 2 in the morning, browsing books at the bookstore we couldn’t afford, fighting our hopeless finals with senseless doodles. It’s due soon: the audiobook I’ll give you. I wrote out and narrated our future life possibilities, like the adventurous romantic fantasy I planned right from the start at the library. - Sappy
