Waltzing Memories

Dedicated to my father

I can feel it beating. Deep in my chest.
Something small, but heavy. I don’t even know what it is.

A sharp, pinning ache.
Has it been here since June 23?
How am I supposed to carry this alone?
Can I even heal alone?

So I try
to remember your face.
It’s hard. But somehow, the weight feels lighter.

I run, wild, to the sea
under a sky with no moon.
Memories crash over me, all at once.
I ask myself why?
No one knows why my heart swells and breaks like this.
All I know is I’m just trying to survive.

Life isn’t what it seems.
Sometimes, I find answers in dreams.
Like a voice, whispering old secrets meant only for me.

So I cry at night
for something I never knew was inside me.
In the dark, a lone star guides me home.
I tell myself, I’ll see you again.
If I call your name loud enough.
I’m not alone.

So I try again,
to remember your face.
This place.
It’s hard. But the weight feels lighter.
I remember.

Comments

The skin doesn't fit and never did

Hands by He Lihuai It happened in the middle of something painfully ordinary—folding laundry. I was standing there, pairing socks, half-distracted like usual, when I suddenly just stopped. My eyes landed on my hands, hands I’ve seen a million times before and out of nowhere, this thought bloomed: these hands won’t always be mine. It shook me a little. Not in a dramatic, existential crisis kind of way. More like a wave lapping at the edges of my awareness. It was the kind of truth that doesn't shout. It hums. And it stayed with me. The older I get, the more moments like that seem to happen. Little flashes that remind me that our bodies aren’t really ours forever. We act like they are, like we can shape them, preserve them, make them last. But they’re not permanent. They're on loan. We’re visitors in our own skin, passing through. I’m reminded of this beautiful passage in Toni Morrison’s Beloved , when Baby Suggs, holy, stands before her community, not to preach doctrine, but t...

Hope sounds like the first birdsong at dawn after a long night

Taste of Cherry (1997) Hope isn’t always loud. It doesn’t always arrive with fireworks or sweeping declarations. More often, it lives quietly in the pause between falling apart and beginning again. It lingers in the small signs that life, somehow, goes on. Sometimes, it sounds like the first bird singing at the edge of morning after a sleepless night. A soft, steady reminder that darkness isn’t permanent. There’s a moment before sunrise when the world feels stuck, like the night might stretch on forever. The sky holds a deep blue stillness, and shadows spill into every corner. It’s easy then to believe that nothing will change. But then, from somewhere unseen, a single bird begins to sing. Not loudly, but with purpose. That melody doesn’t erase the night. It just offers something to hold on to. That’s what hope is. Small. Persistent. Real. It’s like that breath you take before doing something that scares you: that single moment where fear meets the chance to be brave. Hope doesn’...

What the Stars Never Said

Twilight by Sergey A. Tutunov I used to hate the stars. Every time I failed, I’d look up and talk to them as if they were listening. But they never answered. They just blinked, and I took that as their silent agreement that I was a failure, that I deserved everything going wrong. I tried learning their names. Orion, Cassiopeia, Andromeda, but I always got them wrong too. Eventually, I stopped looking. But one evening, as the sky shifted from dusk to dark, I found myself glancing up again. I didn’t name them this time. I just whispered a quiet plea, hoping maybe, just maybe, they’d say something different. "Tell me I deserve all of this," I whispered. The stars blinked, brighter this time and for a moment, I fixated on how much they shimmered, how often they pulsed. It was as if they were trying to say something, not mock me, but answer me. And then the wind moved. Soft, steady, and I paused. Had they always been this beautiful? Maybe I had been too consumed by my own failur...

On Spring and Grace

Search This Blog