Qing Yi Chen

“TALKING TO GOD ABOUT HEAVEN FROM THE BED OF A HEATHEN

You should know that although I miraculously
agreed to attend Bible camp one summer (my devoutly
pragmatic parents signed me up because the camp was free),
I don’t & have never believed in you. Yet here I am:
sitting up in bed, thinking about death, & needing
to talk to someone who (reportedly) has the inside story.
I know, though, that there are believers who don’t believe
out of fear solely. They actually love you. They reach out
& receive your touch. Like a friend, like a boyfriend, like the boy
beside me, overheating, reeking of sweat, & still (somehow)
asleep. I wish I could feel your warmth, as easily
as I feel his. But I don’t. I feel fear. I hear fear telling me I’m
a body, that’s all. & the boy I love is a body. & bodies die. No
other world, no return to this world in another form. (Annihilation.)
It isn’t that I didn’t think these were the facts before. It’s that now,
he’s here. I have to try harder. Believe the facts could be
at least a little wrong. Please, something. Some
magic, real as this ripe life with him.”
― Chen Chen

“My mother was in the hospital
& I didn't want to be her friend. She wanted to be the family grocery list. Low-fat yogurt, firm tofu. She didn't trust my father to be it. You always forget something, she said. even when
I do the list for you. Even then.”
― Chen Chen

“I love you because no two snowflakes are alike, and it is possible, if you stand tippy-toe, to walk between the raindrops.”
― Nikki Giovanni

“Pylades: I’ll take care of you.
Orestes: It’s rotten work.
Pylades: Not to me. Not if it’s you.”
― Anne Carson, Euripides