Enduring/enjoying ratios and business hikikomoris existed.
Mom’s depressed, Chicago friend was on statins with a cholesterol of 140.
We didn’t know where our livers, kidneys, spleens, or appendixes were.
Insert sentences to make me feel awe and wonder.
Collapse another year into novel.
You have become so mature and knowledgeable
Gabbling disjunctively about nutrition and diabetes
Mind muddled by emotional frustration.
She said if she hadn’t bought an apartment in Shanghai
A decade earlier, we’d have no money.
Dreams exercised far vision
So I existed in a world of stilts.
Breathing 2015 air, listening to Sonata 2
Using memory strategically, knowing it’s inaccurate.
Choosing what to remember.
Scrubbing it with my dirty novel.

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Artwork by Tao Lin