jessa ༒︎’s Reviews > The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories > Status Update

‘It is like a gentle kitten is licking the inside of my heart.’

Son, I know that you do not like your Chinese eyes, which are my eyes. I know that you do not like your Chinese hair, which is my hair. But can you understand how much joy your very existence brought to me? Can you understand how it felt when you stopped talking to me and won’t let me talk to you in Chinese? I felt I was losing everything all over again.
Why won’t you talk to me, son? The pain makes it hard to write.

‘I have no candle to burn at both ends. I won’t measure my life with coffee spoons. I have no spring water to quiet desire, because I have left behind my frozen bit of almost-death.   What I have is my life.
“All life is an experiment,” she said. She stepped out of her skirt. He could now see what she had bought over the weekend. Ice blue was her color.’

this might be my fave short story ever