Days at Sea

Sometimes folks will ask me, How did you get here? and whatever they mean, career or location or otherwise, and however I answer, I always think: I must have closed my eyes. I don’t remember yellow trees or sky-colored waves passing by. Did I take a plane, train, car, road? I don’t know, I do things just for the feeling. Go ahead and close my heart. The only true answer to How did I get here? is: by myself.

Darling, Clean Up Your Heart

Ma called me back and told me to pull my heart back—to retract it—better yet, compress it, forward and back, to rein in my heart—but my limited grasp of the language heard, Darling, clean up your heart. She was right, she always is, I’m only alright at handling my needs like light on flowing water—I give up when I shouldn’t, I keep going when I should stop. I knew I had to shou my xin because I’ve seen better hearts before. Once I saw slight beauty and great truth at the dinner table, how my cousin and his wife spoke to the whole party while speaking only to each other. The conversation turned to me at some point that night and I knew even then I had to shou my xin, knew I wasn’t the star of the show, but a repository for mutually unsaid things, no-man’s land on which to safely tread, needed whenever lovers love nearby. But still, I basked in it, happy to take it for granted, leaping at the possibility to have my own orbit, my unyielding my only my unclean heart.

Lavinia Liang is a writer and attorney. Her writing has been published in The Guardian, The Atlantic, TIME, the Los Angeles Review of Books, AGNI, and elsewhere. She can be found on Instagram @lavinianshores.