little things

there is beauty in the frailness of the thin paper you once tore from your notebook; in the creases that have been folded and unfolded and folded and unfolded in my reading and rereading of your letters. there is beauty in the worn out adhesive of the sticker you picked as a makeshift seal, and in the smile of the cartoon penguin it depicts—which is only my favorite animal because of how ceaselessly its smile reminds me of yours. oh, how unlike me –how anthropocentric– to find you in the ecstatic beauty of the intertwined strands of wood pulp.

when we swore we could march through the forest, away from all life, and find reprieve from tomorrow buried under the leaves. the surface of my boots has been polished since then. but the ridges in the welt still stay dirtied by dried memories— the little mementos of you. on nights like these, i sometimes sit and stare at the boots that once followed you, with child-like exuberance. tracing my fingers along the memories. reminding me of what a privilege it is to have loved. what a privilege. oh what a privilege— to have rolled around in the mud with you.

I imagine my mom had a specific reason for choosing that plant as our centerpiece. Surely a name like “Persian Shield” has some significance. I’d like to think it defends our family against legions of misfortune—trapping bad luck between its green and purple hues. It’s for that reason I’ve started to do my homework there—iridescent leaves drooping over biology assignments. In the margins, my pencil traces the name: Strobilanthes dyeriana. My mom’s on another business trip. That means it’s my job to care for the plants. It’s the least I can do. With one hand, I gather my papers into a neat pile on the corner of the dark-oak. With the other, I reach below the table for the cold steel of the rusty watering can. I go to the sink to fill it. I don’t remember where she is this time. She definitely told me, but it’s hard to keep track. Last week she was in Texas, but she must have gone farther this time because the Uber I ordered for her was to SFO instead of SJC. I hope her flight is safe. I keep reading these headlines in the news of plane crashes or spontaneous malfunctions. I can’t remember the last time we’ve had dinner together. I hardly notice the water seeping into my socks. I overfilled the can. It’s fine. I’ll clean it up later. The Shield’s leaves feel drier than usual. I swear I watered them just yesterday, but the leaves feel brittle—crumbling at the edges. I probably need to change the soil. There’s another bag by the sink. It’s almost 9:00PM, and I still haven’t made dinner. I laid out ingredients on one side of the counter; a placemat perfectly set with utensils on the other. Yet I haven’t started cooking yet. I usually wait for my mom to get home. Even if she already ate at work, she stays with me while I cook my own food. It’s our version of “family dinner.” When she’s out on business, my dinner time tends to stall—as if I forget she won’t be back for a few days. The floor begins to dry as my sock absorbs the spill. As I forget to cautiously place my foot, the ground forgets to support me. The porcelain vase slips from my hand. A small cut blooms beneath my eye—just a scratch, probably from a flying shard. The forest of violet smiles from beneath me. Lying on the floor, staring down at the shifting light, I swear I see alternate realities caught between the chlorophyll and anthocyanin. The hues of the forest reflect possibilities— The reds and oranges of my moms cooking, complementing the colors of the plant. Vibrant laughter refracting purple and green into something fuller. A reality where the Persian Shield is a conversation starter, not an isolated observation. —I feel a vibration from my phone. “I landed safely in Taipei!” I smile back, gently gathering our Persian Shield by its roots. It resumes its rightful place on our dining table—with fresh soil; in a new, plastic container. A phone rings on the other side of the world.