Villa 32, Home(town)coming

A seventeen hour trip to hometown was a metamorphosis

I wriggled out to flutter my years of colorful yet deceitful internationality

 

No need for verification. Folks were proud of me coz vanity mattered

We all knew we wanted fantasies, fairy tales, to salivate over and dream upon.

Pampered with indulgent demands

Spoiled with unconditional support

I gradually regressed to a toddler with biological Sugar Mommy and Daddy

They dressed me with that ruffled black gown and ornate choker

 

Stayed at the eleventh floor residence overlooking the extending and entangled urban wilderness

I first sighed and self pitied, feeling like Rapunzel

But I had no voice to attract the Prince nor golden stairs to escape

Where could I go in this city?

 

Even thousand miles away from home New York, confusion and depression still followed and haunted; the past and present intertwined physically but disconnected spiritually

I never realized how unhappy I had always been

 

Wandered around in a different concrete jungle I was possessed with disjointedness

 

A visit to the resort, Villa 32, surprisingly and finally exorcised that loosely figured demon

Soaking in their highly acid spring, named Jade, exfoliated my skin, 

purged my mind

Started to live and breathe the past and present; those things stopped to collide

Under the willow tree by the spring pond a rosy vision emerged from the underneath accompanied by my callus covered toes--

I smiled. 原來我並非不快樂

 

The indiscernible means red transformed into the pasture for peace and creativity

I felt like writing again

 

Hometown could be a getaway, a made shelter

During the metamorphosis return flight, it dawned on me--

我終於可以暢遊異國，放心吃喝

Villa 32 is my Tiffany 

Pink Notebook

In the frames we spoke Mandarin

But someone ourside made English comments

on our every move, things we saw, places we visited

the way we were

 

In a hot summer day we traveled to a tourist spot

You were cranky. I was worried

 

about your motif to dig out my secrets.

I kept all of them in my pink notebook.

 

I tightly held it to my chest while we wandered

to some observatory by cliff; the ocean was below, the mountain light rail nearby

 

Our conversation was mostly trivial, always—

we never really wanted to understand each other

 

No matter how loose our communications could be, you still pried

and at times tried to steal my notebook

 

I was frustrated and angry. I fought back your bullying

But I also wondered why my life still mattered to you

 

The train came and I rushed to it.

I clung at the last car with a leg out dangling

 

You started to chased after the train, cursed me to the hell, but I didn’t give a damn

I was elated

 

Suddenly the pink notebook slipped through my arms

It felt on the rail, rolled to the side, jumped from the cliff, dived in the ocean

 

I panicked. I felt being ripped open

My intestines gyrated in the air

 

I bobbed out of the train, climbed down the cliff, tried to rescue my pink notebook.

Bystanders and passengers were dumbstruck by my action; they gossiped, criticized, and preyed for my ruthless decision

 

I finally crawled to the rocks and I spotted my buoying notebook

It was serenely ensconced in the fluid rocking chair

 

I was happy knowing the book was within the reach

I jumped in and swam toward it

 

The water felt cold yet refreshing

The sun was bright. The air was crisp

 

Yet my pink notebook was gone