Tag: Short Story

In Remembrance

Posted on by Emilyn in Prose

Long walks into the evening setting sun comfort me as the tides creep further and further up the shore grazing my feet as I stand there, washing up sea shells and taking up them back as they go, sinking my feet into the sand as if Neptune mourned my presence with the sea. I’m standing here, thinking of you, while the salty atmosphere winds blows through my hair, and whispers of your voice remind me of how much you loved the sea. As the sea creeps ashore to kiss my toes oh so gently, the scent of salty ocean air is soothing as you breathe against my neck, but the ache of missing you still lingers still in my skin as I reminisce. My bones are captivated by the fresh air they never get to feel. My porcelain skin fades into the white sand, into its embrace wishing it was yours. I start to lose my balance, gravity pulling me but I stay standing so I can see the sun setting in the distance. The soft oranges, rose pinks and yellows remind me that endings can be beautiful, no matter how much I miss the sun would stay just a little while longer. As the sky begins to fade to a somber shade of blue, I close my eyes and allow my mind to focus the white noise of crashing waves, praying that when I open them, the sun will have risen, and you will be standing here beside me because I had the sea on my arm in your remembrance, so your beloved tides could bring you back to me in a bottle washed upon shore. When the sun rises again with its oranges, yellows, crimson, and purple horizons, I will know you will have returned to my memory.

–         Emilyn Nguyen, In Remembrance

Different Types of Beginnings

Posted on by Emilyn in Prose

“The memories are enough for me,”

I tell myself. It’s simply alright if we never get the chance to meet again, or explore what we could possibly have with one other. I am satisfied with the lessons I’ve learned from you, and I feel a release now that you’ve waivered from me. I no longer think of “what ifs”, or regret of missed chances, mourning a second chance and new beginning.  I’ve been thinking about the words I never got to say, many that you were waiting for, but I’ve been thinking and I’ve been feeling and I’ve been praying that perhaps, what you requested was far from what I was ready for. Your name is embedded in me, and our language is the easiest I have ever spoken, but the most difficult I find to forget for it flows between my teeth and through my lips like sugar. I hope we speak again someday, but I’ve only just found my sight again. I tell myself that perhaps for now, “the memories are enough for me.”

“Hello.”

Based on the past black and white photos, I am out of heart to give it up one more time. I am guarded, but you always catch me by surprise.  I think that it’s a friendly beginning to no more than a friendship composed of a few waves and content greetings. It won’t progress further than that, now that I’ve gotten a hold of my life, and I’m out of the spotlight.  I have become tired of a script written for me by another person, as if it is written by another sleight of hand. I can’t remember the time where he was friendly to me; or a time that I felt cherished, or simply cared-for. I started from an aura of this nothingness, but suddenly I am full – of life, and he couldn’t possibly take it from me this time. Yet, we meet as such a disposition. I always speak about someday, but beginnings are now difficult. I don’t want them to be the start of where I had ended. Yet, I respond, “Hello.” I hope that our memories are never enough.

“Good morning!”

You say, as we exchange smiles and waves because that is what we have become accustomed to. It is a glimpse to a beginning every time we speak sending butterflies throughout. What I think about is a new opening scene in a novel, free to start over in a new book, and mind set, use your imagination if you please. There are new intentions, new ideas, and new friendships –  all of which could possibly make me smile. It is all quite possible in this good morning.

“This is the last leg,”

I joke. He laughs loudly, and I notice a light to his face, I’ve never seen before. I think of new beginnings as I hear this new laughter abrupt. I feel as I’ve know you before, but this time, I feel that I could find you if I ever need you. I want to laugh with you, so I would like to someday just know if there was any other day or way I could possibly have another beginning. Always.

“High five!”

Half way through the year, and we’ve spoken a total of a few paragraphs totaling up to the first few chapters of my favorite book. It’s the exposition, and the characters have already untwined nothing but their names, how they move, and they talk, but nothing more… so far.

“Wait up!”

It never progresses further than speaking about the weather, but I stop, and always proceed to wait. I notice… you know. I’ll be your friend to notice the smallest parts of you like I over analyze every word in the books you may notice my nose is always in. I notice. You always pause when you see me walk by, and you always slow down when you see me walking feet behind you. Our lives seem to collide in more than one way, and I don’t mind meeting you over and over again, jut repeating our beginning. I notice, and this gives me hope; waiting for our conversation to progress, but I notice your eyes are always locked on my face, and I synchronize your motions, and that is somehow enough for me.

“I see you.”

I do. We have inside jokes – of odd looks, and small gestures that we have accumulated over this year. At this senior to senior dance the nursing home thrives on energy and dancing we both lack in skill. You try to dance with your long limbs, swaying to each side. There’s no doubt that you’ve won the hearts of more than one that night, there were more eyes than mine you could have made eye contact with, but yours were locked on mine. It was a night, yet to the classroom setting the night continues. Our eyes meet more  times than one, and I hope to meet them, it isn’t a chore… “keep your eyes on your own paper.”

“I want to get to know you better.”

Yet our lives are places in such an arrangement to never proceed any further than this slow beginning. A curse has been placed upon us to never break past it, but my patience is running thin. I don’t know how to proceed; I am not good with spoken words as I am with writing them. You speak of my “Intelligence”, my “talent”, my “beauty”… but all I am missing is the air to proceed any further.

“I really did enjoy getting to know you this year.”

What I wanted to say in response was, “I spent all year trying to get to know you… and I am still trying, and wanting to get to know you – all of you.” At the beginning of this year, I did not want to speak any words, yet here we are speaking words that we have never spoken, half grounded, ready to fly from this place, going our separate ways. We still have yet to surpass gentle waves of hello, and talks about the weather, but there are, I guess, different types of beginnings. There are beginnings that are fast, and some beginnings are slow. Some beginnings I could get used to happening over and over again.

“I hope we will see each other again.”

–                       Emilyn Nguyen, Different Types of Beginnings

 

 

Catching Light

Posted on by Emilyn in Prose

Resting by the open grass field behind our house, her hands are rested on the tips of the grass blades, running her hand through them, much like our mother brushed our hair; gently with finesse, plaiting our locks into a tightly woven braid, pulling the strands I was twirling at my fingertips, and securing them away with the last of loose ends. When my sister starts speak, I am caught by surprise, there is a beauty in her that I have never noticed before. Her voice is familiar but her tone is held captive by solitude at the back of her throat. She points to our neighbor’s stalks of sunflowers faced away from us. “Did you know that sunflowers grow towards the sun? They’re beautiful. Aren’t they?” I don’t respond. I only smile at her, and continue to gaze into the empty air.

The sun’s rays are direct today; there are little clouds, and no haze except the glare from the sunlight hitting my glasses I notice the streaks from the light, wondering if my sister notices them too. She doesn’t wear glasses. Her eyes are too delicate, and beautiful to have anything cover them. She possessed recessive traits, much like our mother, but she has my father’s nose. No wonder she has a quirk for smelling problems, bugging into trouble. They always did, but it’s evident that she has the braveness of my father despite her delicate eyes, and tendencies. She is beautiful – so beautiful. I smile as I watch her immerse herself into the setting.

The sunlight that shines on her does well; does her justice; does mother justice; does father justice. I smile at the thought of mother standing and hovering over us. I imagine her hair getting caught in the wind, and the sunlight catching on her, exposing the roots of her dark hair as a light brown, her eyes become speckled with green, and yellow. In the light, her beauty persists – endlessly – I see her in my sister.

I thought light travels too fast to be caught, but how lovely it would be to have it in a jar – along with a sunflower, my mother’s gold rings, and my sister’s favorite trinkets. It would be beautiful – cherished. When I tell her about this jar, she grins, and tells me that I should leave some of my lemon cookies in it too. “They’re so sweet!” She says. I laugh, “…and yellow! My favorite color!” she adds.

“I know. Mine too,” I think to myself. They’re as sweet as you – just as bright as you, “… like the sun!” she interrupts. Yes, you are the sun. I smile, brushing the grass at my fingertips, looking at my sister in awe of her gentleness, kindness, and beauty. The sun hits her drowning her a little, and I see my mother. “What are you looking at?” She asks.

“Nothing,” I respond. She shrugs, and begins dancing, spinning, twirling in the grass, singing songs, I cannot understand, with carelessness. She clasps her hands like she’s trying to catch the light, dancing with nothing but the beat of her heart. Her laugh contagiously latches on me as we end up rolling in the grass in laughter. Looking towards the sky, she faces the sun, and her eyes are squinted because of her smile. It’s so big, and wide, her happiness makes my stomach flutter. I am happy for her.

Resting by the open grass field behind our house, my arms are reached toward the sky, my fingers trying to pinch the sun, with one eye closed; catching the light for her, when she already had. “Remember when we used to hide here, spinning in our dresses until our hearts gave out, and the light left us, only to return the next dy. Now we’ve decided our ambitions, spinning our minds – never stopping – until we’re wrapped in light,” I say. Lying on the grass alone, looking up at the sun, seeing her. I am happy for her.

–          Emilyn Nguyen, Catching Light

 

 

Dear New York, I Am Looking For Something in Millions

Posted on by Emilyn in Prose

“New York is made up of millions of different people, and they all come here looking for something” ― Lindsey Kelk, I Heart New York

When I slept last night, I dreamt through a thousand unknown years. Every year, I was looking through someone’s perspective. I felt their hands sweat to the pressure of the men in black suits; their feet move to the audition music of Broadway; their hearts beat faster when they confessed their love; their eyes become brighter to the city lights – their dreams becoming what they had only seen in their sleep. In a thousand unknown years from black and white to the serenity of color, tranquility fell into my heavy life, and pulled me from the darkness where I fallen from, and into the daylight in which even amidst my dreams – seemed to have whispered my ambitions and aspirations to a city that belonged to millions before me, leaving me to search for a single speck of hope in the city. I felt hopeless until when my soul departed the muted black and white history of home, I remember that I became a flock of pigeons to be with it. Five second of its atmosphere’s presence on my skin, I was taken and embraced by it – this, made me think that these ambitions and aspirations of mine will be forever at my palms. To think, once in time, I saw this city for its gray and blue. I took it for its heat, but these cool evening take me back in time. “Do you remember,” I think, “the nights I’ve stayed up, even in the bad times, thinking there is a glass half full though only of sinking hopes, waiting to be revived.” I might have figured this out as these city lights are keeping me up, and I cannot possibly wait to fall asleep to another thousand unknown years belonging to those looking for something in a single city. Perhaps when I awake, I must be the next perspective in this first night in the big city.

–   Emilyn Nguyen, Dear New York, I Am Looking For Something in Millions (Dear New York Series)

Dear New York, I Am Hopeful for You

Posted on by Emilyn in Prose

“London is satisfied, Paris is resigned, but New York is always hopeful. Always it believes that something good is about to come off, and it must hurry to meet it.” ― Dorothy Parker

There is a sight in my mind, of strangers brushing my shoulder, and a view taking the breaths that leave my lips. It guides my eyes through the cracks of cement statues, gray air, and a transition of memories – all of those who pass by from the sweeping spectators to those who commenced our reunion. Statues stop many of us in our tracks to admire their silenced symbolism. They speak as if to whisper, “Hello”.

I reckon it’s a tangible abyss we are in. This is art, one attempting to foreshadow what comes. To it: it’s a chance to live outside of what is expected – a new frame of mind. They even tell me that, “it was what should have come much sooner.”

There are paintings concealed by glass, and there are statues concealed by people, all concealed by an aura of such energy. People surround them freely, even at the sight of expired ideas, and dreams, a new melody and harmony is redeemed.  It lands on my tongue and tastes of a muse of discovery.

I imagine stone statures that seem to breathe and move along with the people it captures amongst its personas. I thought I felt one tap my shoulder. Backs are turned away to meet bright faces. They are too, begging for a grand entrance, they say “nothing can hold them down,” but their feet are bounded, and so instead people discover them. Some grab their cold hands to dance with them. Their feet barley move at all, but the energy is swirling around seventy hundred feet sky scrapers, collected in April rain puddles, and gracefully gliding down the streets. Time is in short supply but they live timelessly in movements granted by those who own the chisel.

Within them there are people of melody, and there are people of harmony. There are drafts of pure greetings, and fossilized farewells. I see them all, and yet it is welcoming me with new written sonatas, with freshly molded tempos. I hope to dance to them.

My friends are tugging at my arms for they have gathered our belongings and I have already begun collecting dust. They tell me that the stones have already started moving; the air has been blaring in tunes; the light has already started to glimmer; they say, “good is about to come off, and we must hurry to meet it,” – Soon.

–         Emilyn Nguyen, Dear New York, I’m Hopeful For You (Dear New York Series)

The Mistakes

Posted on by Emilyn in Prose

When we make mistakes, do we really learn from them?

Especially when we know that our mistakes lie in the witness of others, and our minds ruin the fact that our mistakes will never go forgotten — will never be forgiven. You tell yourself that you were just a child, you couldn’t possibly know. Yet, your mind circles around the fact that your mistake will linger in the air forever and you cannot improve because you cannot take it back.

 It’s already been done: a mistake it was exhibited for show.

So when I ask, do we really learn from our mistakes, I respond, “no”.

I live in them, I swim in them, and they remind me how I must do better. They tell me how I’ve done wrong, and how much I’ve to improve: I’ve to improve everything. I try harder to improve my craft, but God Damn, the mind of an over-thinker will emphasize that “No, whatever you do, you’ve wronged the first time — and that’s the only time that matters.”

Back Up.

No.

Mistakes build character, and even though your head is wrapped up, tangled in, reliving in, and retracing the fact that you’ve made a mistake, it tells me so much that you’re trying. Even though you have a small voice, and your body seems like wither at the sight of a crowd, your mistake is done — it’s over, and if you believe that you are defined by it, than what you don’t know is: you are not. You are shaped by it. Because of it, you will thrive in all your endeavors. I promise you that you will not make the same mistake more than three times, because you’ve put so much thought into it, and the part of you that cares too much will remember that you are determined enough to remember not to. If you do: the first time is to warn you; the second time is to persuade you; and the third time is to … see. I told you.

So if I ask the question again, do we learn from our mistakes, I say,

Perhaps our mistakes must learn from us.

Do they know how much we emphasize them over the good, no matter how little it might have been. More than they know, we know the most that we’ve made them, and we have replayed them over in our heads, seeing people shake their head at us until our minds are dry in our mistakes. What we know is that we know that mistakes build character beside its negative connotation. Not making mistakes is inevitable. It doesn’t make you a failure.

The next time you make a mistake, a question echoes: When we make mistakes, do we really learn from them? Especially when we know that our mistakes lie in the witness of others, and our minds ruin the fact that our mistakes will never go forgotten — will never be forgiven. In the moment that your mind is hovering in uneasy murmurs or doubts, and questions, they have already been:

Forgotten – 

Have Already Been Forgiven.

 –             Emilyn Nguyen, The Mistakes

Meghana

Posted on by Emilyn in Prose

In the reflection of the sunrise,
a cloud disrupts the clear sky with one single tear,
and I can see the joy in the eyes of those who held you first:

White, and pure into their hands, before it evaporates. Notice how she smiles, molding into the palms of your hands, but she may stay or leave you, no matter what she’ll leave you a mark of goodness, reminding you that it exists. It might be an unparticular date, January 27th, but the clouds still form. There might be rain, maybe snow today, perhaps hail, but this cloud stands alone, brushing dust off the back of her hand to start waving, whispering her wishes in a bashful hush. “Something ought to come out of those clouds, something out to come of me.”  Twisting through the white-blue sky, a background of blue snow, her words are a reason to become winded. She becomes all of the elements of the sky that one holds between their fingers while their head is tilted back and up blinded by the brightness of the sky. You don’t even know. Within you, you’ve shared stories, and painted in breezes. Illusions unfold, and rewind together within you sometimes you escape once again though… you always return to watch over me once again. Sometimes, you will not say a word, but in visuals you write in strength, smiles and hope – aspiring to inspire. You grow in shapes and sizes, aside the bright sun, and you’re a cloud. You can become everything and anything here or even beyond the white-blue skies.

It feels like a cotton breeze,
as I watch the sun rise, and you appear.
“Meghana,” they call you.

–               Emilyn Nguyen, Meghana

To Be Sorry

Posted on by Emilyn in Prose

 “Don’t come back here! I have a bomb,” he said with no hesitation in his voice.

With an undertone of laughter, he pointed at me with pure determination to frighten me away. As laughter arose from the depth of the leather bus seats and the black aisle, he was joined by the other kids in roars of squeals and giggles. I walked down the bus aisle to find an open seat, praying it would be the next. As he pointed, I took a few steps back. Hold your head high. Hold your tears back. I heard my father’s voice in the back of my head. Hold your chin up, look him right in the eye.  I remembered my grandfather said in his story of a war he once lived through. His wrinkles on a corner of his eye as he pounded his fist against the table to get a strong point across. There was no fear in his eyes, his body figure was tall and strong as I looked up at him. I’ve been through this before. Pre-school, when I came home with red blotches on my skin – bruises forming from an abusive friend. She was ‘just kidding’.

 As I made me way to the back of the bus to find a seat, he began to chant louder into my ears. “Don’t come back here! I have a bomb! Don’t come back here! I have a bomb! Don’t come back here! I have a bomb!” he repeatedly shouted. A silent storm started to erupt. Snowflake turned into hail as its rage, but I forced the tears behind my eyelids till it ached; till my heart began to pound harder and my skin began to react to the heated yellow bus.

Slowly but cautiously my feet started to move, as if courage was something I was taught; as if my heart could tread any faster or as a myocardial infarction could erupt. My feet were weights, dragged on by life, as it must go on. My dry slanted eyes of my ethnicity forced tears back until my eyes were a desert that never sought water. My hands climbing back to the back while eye were captured on me, my hands trembling towards every seat. A treacherous journey, day by retched day, hour by hour, minute by minute, second by slowing second. My head was constantly on a move to find a seat. I repeat: a seat.

 My eye caught onto a girl crying. I remember her face. Her long dirty blonde locks down her back. I remember her. “Sixteen and pregnant”. I remember her name from the whispers down the hallway. To believe them was enforced by the cliques of popularity. She was a savage sent off from the clique: let go. A used tool of a popularity game. True or not, she was human, and beautiful. Her beauty was a bright, glowing face, blonde hair down her slim figure against the others in her group of friends. Her face in the hallways, as she stopped me. My face covered in acne, from the late nights stress and heredity’s genes. My eyes in complete shock to what exploded out of her mouth, “There might be some acne cream to fix your face, but it won’t fix you.”

As if the rumors were worth a death of innocent girl. Rumors hold a fate, as if words meant more than truth. Jealousy raging and fighting an innocent girl who gave me the same fate. I looked at her, and her eyes were placed on mine, and I opened my mouth and said, “I’m sorry”, as if there was no past between us. I smiled at her, and her tears started to ease. Her stained face of mascara started to dry upon her face. She smiled and started to laugh among the other on the bus.

Quick remarks, and kind hearts could only go in such way. Maybe we met at the wrong time, and that’s what I’ll tell myself for now. Maybe one day, years from now, we’ll meet again, and we could give a friendship another shot. For now laughs from afar seemed too close, and hallucination-like views were too real to be forgiven. Chanting kids like screaming angry chimpanzees on Animal Planet.

If finding a seat was this difficult, maybe walking a few miles home seemed to be easier. I turned away and started to walk towards the exit of the bus, the bus driver giving me an ugly stare, “Where are you going?” he asked. The bus monitor’s stubborn eyes glared at me.

“I’m sorry,” I said. ‘Sorry’ seemed to be the only thing I could say. I repeated, “I’m sorry”. Sorry, a word of apology, a word for expressing pity.

“Nothing to be sorry for, but please take a seat,” he said.

 I nodded. “Sorry.”

Again, a seat on a full bus of kids was rare. Two in a seat. “Can I sit with you?” I asked a girl. Her brown hair was put up in a messy bun, her soccer cleats on her lap.

“No. This might be too close to the back for you. I don’t want to be hurt by the bomb too.” She replied.

I nodded. Again: “Sorry.”

I reached the back of the bus, closer to the boys who acted as terrorists. As if my eyes defined who I was – it did, but as if it defined who I was in the inside. Stereotypes are too mainstream.

 Closer I came to the back of the bud, kids were joined in by other kids on the back of the bus, one screamed, “Do come back, maybe It’ll straighten out your eyes!” Laughs started to erupt, exploding from a volcano. Sparks falling from the sky, first piercing my skin, then burning it, killing me. I sat next to that boy…the bus monitor asked him to move over so I could take a seat. His eyes were watering. I wasn’t sure if he wasn’t taking his bad day out on me or if it was from the laughter. As if it was funny from the beginning.

 To this day, these words still ring throughout my ears, and it’s still packed in the back of my mind. I still remember the people who were on that bus, their faces and how they still give me dirty glares as I pass down the hallways. Maybe a few years from now, in a café shop, we’ll get along, and maybe we could give it another shot, starting with a hello.

 I looked at him with his spiky hair in class today, and he helped me pick up my stuff when I dropped it. While picking papers up, our hands collided and our head bumped, and I didn’t realize it was him, but he has the same eyes: blue and bright. I forgave him for everything…”Sorry.”

–         Emilyn Nguyen, To Be Sorry

Doors

Posted on by Emilyn in Prose

I always had an admiration for doors as you did. The doors were the springs in simplicity that kept me grounded all these years – never to leave the house after six and before six without telling him. You tried throwing away the trinkets she left behind, but still, you loved her like you loved the front door she made aside you. Left open, you exchanged the screen doors for glass because one day, you believed that she would be staring through it again, clear through glass rather than distorted. You didn’t want to admit you loved the light but hated the evening winds – you believed they blew her away. The doors reminded you of hope as they do in uncertainty but in your reprimanding depth, I said they were reminders of hope to create the frames of uncertainty; shall I leave it open or closed, summer sun or in springs rain, glass or screen. No one can discover what lies behind their hinges with a quick glance. If she will return with her eyes of apology or in hope of shelter. Yet, I still loved doors. For every one held its own adventure, its own journey, its own story – fate of love or hate – but see, you began to hate doors. Your mind as hysterical as mine when you began to forget my name. You decided you would rather close them – the doors. You always liked to tear things down instead of build them up. You made me replace the glass with the screen, so you could feel the winds. Now that you’re relapsing into Alzheimer’s superiority, you’ve forgotten about mom, no longer waiting for her to return at the door. Yet, I waited for you to return. When I trusted you to open my doors and you slammed it right in my face, but I knew it wasn’t you, Dad, your conscience slowly deteriorating. You crushed my insecurities in the small cracks I let hope try to shine through. The door we made together, sanded together began to rust into dust. You splintered my heart on the wooded frames I gave to you to protect. I painted you with the brightest, loveliest colors of yellow, invested in every brush stroke I made because even when you wanted it closed, I knew somewhere you wanted the light again. You hated doors and I hate that I trusted you enough to open mine, so I did, and once you saw mom, I had knew that in my uncertainty, you had found hope – only leaving me to mine.

 –         Emilyn Nguyen, Doors

The Eight Figure Knot

Posted on by Emilyn in Prose

It was the adrenaline of being tangled, swinging many feet from the ground, with you, holding the rope, anchoring me, keeping a hold of me even when I was levitating miles above. From the top, my arms were cramping up, and my legs were shaking – my fear unbearable – but I quickly close my eyes and climb further up looking down when my heart was speeding at its brink and – there you are.

You look like the boy who kept his desk too clean in Elementary School. The boy who rose his hand to answer all the questions in Middle School, moving on to High School as Valedictorian. You look like the boy who grew up denying everything, as if you were any less than a common man – you are not a common man. You remind me of myself, with your glasses always standing firm at the bridge of your nose. Securely they stand, reflecting the light when you turn your head from side to side, glancing at the rock wall; glancing at me. You seem like one to savor the rain, and the humidity of an exotic forest; one to capture every moment in a picture even if the droplets are pelting into our skins. Your hair is short but long enough for me to notice the curls above your ears. They collect sunflower pollen, and you don’t notice, but the curls above your ears constantly dancing to the light shown in.

You seem to be the equivalent to my white bedroom walls, holding my secrets to the brown wooden frames capturing my success. I believe that they are bound with the ties to my God. My religion forbids suffering, but my desire persists. I admit that there is dust collecting on my bookshelves and perhaps this is a sin to my desires. Scarcely, I am heard, with my mind that creates the words: I am ready.

The vines I have started growing up these walls, and I know that the time has come. I tuck my hair behind my ears, and let my eyes wander to analyze your face, only when you aren’t looking. I see your eyes in my peripheral vision, so blue, and clear to me, as you tie the ropes to my waist.

My reflexes – even for my eyes – are fast, but it is hard when I am with you. Your eyes keep meeting mine, as you tie the robe to my harness, the rope gliding against my skin, and around my waist precisely. When our fingers touch I wonder if the butterflies that flooded me reached and carried throughout you.

My fingers trace the rocky walls – rough, and I analyze the heights I will climb, and I close my eyes, as I feel your hands bend the rope into an infinity sign – twice. Despite my angst of heights, my fear seems to be approaching its death. I tuck my discomposure away behind my eyes, and this time, I hide from my anxiety, from these thoughts. I glimpse down at the ropes last knot, and lastly at your eyes, and I know that: I am ready.

You tell me that once you reach the top yell at the top of your lungs that you’ve made it, because “you are capable of everything” and your worlds ring inside of me. Your hands are worldly to a fortune teller. You were everything you aspired to be – everything I aspire to be. Climbing became your hobby, for you were afraid of shallow living only aiming to heights. With this in mind, I realize: I’ve made it.

I looked down at my palms, lines and creases, blended alike. You are worldly. Your hands are worldly to me. Eight times again – Infinitely.

–          Emilyn Nguyen, The Eight Figure Knot