china notes 2

peche


everyone singing along to taylor swift in zoo coffee

i can’t think in here



(Kayla, did I even tell you about ZOO coffee???)





someone is always wo gao su ni-ing someone while I listen in



all the dusty bicycles are leaning towards my home
The saccharine covers of jazz standards in the cafés

Etta's heart wrapped up in clover and Otis sitting on

the dock make me cry for a western dream too
I'm a day in the future with even more catching up 
to do than before

perpetually sneezing in cafes full of smoke









I must have ringworm


what is poetry anymore

but seeing things that

aren’t there



and working so hard

to put those things

into words

that you make

them disappear



I feel my body

substantiating

in my clothes

我不再是一个小幽灵



I can’t get away

with what I used to





and the caterpillars 
that came out in the 
evening would fall 
icy cold onto my neck



foreigners only talk about 
drinking not drinking 
clubbing not clubbing
themselves and 
their pride here



“I start smoking when 
I’m drunk, only when 
I’m drunk, but I’m drunk 
quite often, so I smoke 
a lot. Fu wu yuan! fu 
wu yuan, hey! my 
breakfast was… 
hen hao chi. no, not 
tomato sauce, ketchup. 
ketchup is different. 
you like tequila? really? 
I Like Whiskey.”













My fellow Uyghur students 
faced no prejudice in the 
work place, and

For example, thousands 
of students compete 
in the kite festival 
to watch him.

These students, besides 
faring well in general, 
may not understand





Though the Uyghurs 
live in the mountains 
peacefully, meditation 
is the perfect time to 
do this.

........





i’m sitting in the faux marble 
floor common room in my liu xue 
sheng su she shaoyuan home liu 
hao lou. when i rub my eyes i’m 
riding my bike home from work
through Greenpoint. the night is 
windy and black with flecks of glass 
and my black t-shirt is wet from dishes
and reeking from kitchen smoke. 
my boots are slippery and worn thin, 
i can feel the pedals through their soles
my bare legs are covered in coffee 
and juice streaks everything is slippery 
and hot and wet and sticky in 
the wind.

i’ve already forgotten what the 
sandwiches are called and what’s in them.
they couldn’t possibly still exist.

if i squint i can taste what it was 
like to go back to our hot futon, 
riding under the overhead tracks 
and the furniture stores and the dollar 
stores and the supermarket and the 
middle school and the garage with 
all the shirtless men and their four 
wheelers. it was scared and blank 
and loud and dirty.

my bike is light purple. it couldn’t 
possibly still exist.

new york is just as exotic as Beijing 
there is no staying clean or feeling 
animated in the summer when you work 
all day then you go home to shower 
and don’t want to move and your 
boyfriend comes home much later 
when he gets off of work at one am 
and you’re already asleep but 
worrying about him and he gets home 
and watches a tv show on his laptop 
which is agitating and meaningless 
your kitten attacks your arm 
needs feeding you live in a railroad 
apartment and there is no where in it 
you want to be but you don’t want to 
be outside because the city requires you 
buy things that is entertainment 






making statements about a culture

or about anything

makes you feel smart

i haven’t had any clear view on reality

for months now

actually i probably never have

and no one else ever has

it’s all just making containers for the sake of sanity

i miss high school




can you imagine being run down by someone in all black with a long knife



something fratty this way comes...



i see such darkness
a fire with no light
keeps getting stuck
in my mind
thank you for that
everyone is talking 
about it
how do we help each
other out of this pit?
the character for
small is a pictogram 
of three grains 
of sand. xiao. I
fit in my compact
some things never
changes. some th
ing never change
I made an iTunes
playlist named
Calm. so far it is
only Chopin Best Of
and Michael Hurley
I still hear that song as
she understands
blue mountains
and I still hear Chopin
as I did xiao de shi hou
when my mom was
teaching dance
classes in our living
room and I was
thinking of how
bees tell each other
where the good
flowers are by
dancing
.
Hey Person

the word
for flower and the
word for to spend
are the same. hua.

I first was acquainted with twitch in sant'antioco

which is interesting, kale, cos it really reminds
me of anegeda cow wreck bite bitch death
and because you're twitch
an italian comic book for tween witches
it was so good and i just remembered it

Cross my finger tips for writing song

I changed my city I changed my country home

Sometimes you need to make contact


Bella lugosis back he's back he's back

Keep it compact keep it minimal

Some thing never change

Ren tai duo




Ni zhi huo yi ci
(you only live once)




I like to take my sweet time
Refrain from buying cigarettes
Refrain from writing about cigarettes
Refrain from noting how I hold 
my cigarette cupped invisibly 
in my right hand hanging at my side 
as I walk past the school guards 
and realize its good because 
it makes a small carburetor 
in my right hand and it is so 
cold outside
Wo zui xiang one day 
I have something to talk about
some true black meat
It's all around me
Be self-disciplined
What the fuck does that mean
I'm dreaming of a cuter coffin 
and trying to convince myself 
it matters
I could be anywhere right now
Poetry is tailing me and makes 
me see things that aren't there
I could be anywhere
Not reading, not writing, 
not working, just walking around 
charring my insides
Being followed by some 
thing that doesn't exist
I'm basically a single-cell 
organism wearing clothes
Haunted by boys that don't exist 
This is not a xiu xi because 
I am actively making myself 
feel bad and actively not 
preparing for the next moment
A meeting with autumn fruit 
in 10 minutes






Poetries hard walls....? 
The hard wallsof poetry...? 
The apple? Sophisticated 
Susan dolls made in rehab? 
The video of Simi and Duffy 
and then the window opens 
with candles stuck in sriracha 
bottles sitting in the grate 
and there is no one there 
but I was expecting J K 
to be there.







Always on gaurd there is no free

Toy Apple Beauty
What does an apple mean
Apples are everywhere to tell 
us we're on the right track
When I think about the linoleum 
floor and twin bed next to the 
window I know there weren't 
any apples there
And my husband an hour away 
in the snow covered city
I thought I was cheating 
on him in my sleep
I fall in love so easily
But I should be looking 
for someone who gives 
me apples










the only thing is to be beneficial to others

zenme zheme you qian???

outside dreaming about inside

inside dreaming about the outside

dark deep slimey black night

falling asleep with my mouth open in the cab

waking up not knowing the

cardinal directions anymore

all those big concepts i never knew about

i’ve lost the capacity to learn about them

all those really small non concepts too

make it go blank

nothing

all i know is i like this

i like writing the character for meng

i like writing the character for lou

how did i stray so far from what i want

everything is just everyone consenting

silently to some kind of order

some kind of way of being smart

way of being right

i’m always wondering about a cuter coffin

i’m always wondering about the fire without light

i knew he wasn’t afraid to die

“there is nothing mysterious or natural about authority.” (20)

i brought all of my least civilized 

clothing to the other side of the world

how often should a person buy new clothes

they come and go as is fit

whiskers on kittens

I’m too smart to play these games

I’m too stupid to win them

drink a beer and do all my homework

it shatters shatters shatters

today i rode my new bike 

all the way across town

all the spring time trees 

are releasing these cotton 

puffs when i saw the first 

one outside of my su she 

window l thought it was 

just laundry day

it makes me feel like i 

can understand the world 

a little better

dream of semi rape by a 

horseman going through 

withdrawals, gripping me 

with his thumbs

but then protecting him 

when the cops came, 

syd vicious and i stopped 

the cops from searching 

his bag

kan dianying you’re great 

no i’m not i’m awful

the slightest motion will 

always be interpreted exactly 

how you expect

I've been having a lot of trouble 

writing about what it's like so far 

and still am. But one important 

sensory detail you need to know 

is that the air really always smells 

dark and dangerous. Which is coal, 

but it's strangely frankincense 

perfume-like. Most days I like that. 

Some days it's so thick I can taste
it and my mouth feels like it's 

lined with heavy metals.

<3

林雅