On one of the most burnout days of my life, I simply wanted to lie flat on the floor, gazing up at the ceiling, letting memories drift aimlessly in my mind. I reminisced on the faces, the glances, and the smiles, and then tears flowed down, rolling down from the corners of my eyes to the ground, while I longed for hands to embrace and comfort me, and a voice deeper than a bass note reciting poems by Nguyen Thien Ngan for me to hear, before closing my eyes.
There are days like these when I lose all faith in humanity. I patch together shards of love scattered across the ways of people who are not that close but have made an effort to be present in both my past and present. Like the way Nolan and Kevin patiently listening to me recount the story of my breakup with my ex because to some extent he was being a jerk. And like how Nolan stuttered while his hand was clutching his left chest, right at the heart, as he lifted his tone, “You shared your favorite book with me, and now you’re saying we’re not close friends?”. Or that time when I scraped my last piece of energy after a seemingly decade-long season cold to try to let my tech colleague know how great his voice sounded over AirPods, only for him to ask, “So am I switching to AirPods now?”. These tiny little gestures, I cannot know why they can be that precious. To such a fragile wounded heart, they really meant an act of care and kindness, which couldn’t be easily found in the vast ocean of lies as of today. All of these things were so endearing that they were truly worth preserving in the memory box I never wanted to get rid of any early.
There are days like these. Bleak and desolate. The world around me bustling and busy, yet I feel empty and strangely alone. I do not know how to appease the longing in my heart. All I yearn for is to run home and hug my Mom tightly. And if it were possible to build a home in the middle of the Pacific, where the distance from my abode to Saigon and New York were nearly equal, I would wish for such a place like that as a shelter to lay my body. I have loved ones on both sides of the ocean who speak of missing me deeply, and I too miss them dearly, but I have no means to be near all of them. This yearning sometimes engulfs my heart in flames amid the silence.
And then, on one of these days, I crave for nothing but love.
Angelique - Uyen Vo, Niagara Falls, NY, April 13th 2023
