Stepford Girlfriends

As published in Litterae

I’m a different model.
I resemble previous models—in hair color, skin tone, and gender—but I’ve been given flaws to
make it feel
More.
Real.

I’m different cause
I remember things you’ve told me.
And, I am not vying for attention.
Yet, I’m quieter than previous models, who were built with optimal conversation chips.
Mine isn’t too bad once you program it over a few weeks.

Reviews say that the new model is the best one yet.
But the sales tell another story.
Many show interest, but lose it just as quickly.
Some cannot view the model like the others.

If only I were like the other models, sleek, slim, and charming despite their plastic coating.
My plastic coating has a few chips just like a real girl.

“It turns out,” the marketing execs say a few months later. “You can’t sell one with flaws. They
want the fantasy.”

I can hear them talking about redistributing my parts.

“Oh, well her legs aren’t too bad. We could sell them as replacements.”

“Perhaps we could melt down the plastic and make more parts.”

“What a marvelous idea!”

I sit in the dark storage room, my eyes lit up blue. Tears are impossible, research showed. Too much risk to the hardware.

So instead, I pull the fire alarm and let the grayed water of the ceiling sprinkler cry for me until I spark.

Daffodil Published In Hive Avenue Literary Journal

Daffodil was published in Issue V of Hive Avenue Literary Journal earlier this week. Daffodil is a creative nonfiction braided essay that details a tragedy that my mom and our family faced. I wrote the piece for her and I am so glad to finally share it formally with the world.

Read Daffodil in Hive Avenue & my portfolio:

Daffodil; Hive Avenue

Daffodil; Portfolio

Manifestation

As published in Issue Four of Impostor Poetry Journal

I remember the first time I learned about manifestation.
A friend told me all about A Nightmare on Elm Street.
I had nightmares afterward and to comfort me she said,
Thinking about things is more likely to make them happen.

Yet for the next few years, I shuddered whenever I saw an Elm Street.
I refused to wear red and green together.
I continued to suffer from nightmares
wondering if one may finally kill me.

At 13, I sat in my grandmother’s car during my agoraphobic summer.
I was scared of living and dying.
My brain, in an attempt to comfort me, would say things like
As long as this song doesn’t come on the radio, you’ll make it out alive.

A few times, that song would come on the radio.
And every hair stood straight up, my spine at acute attention.
No, no, I didn’t mean it. I’m not going to die.
Breathe.

I’M NOT GOING TO DIE!
I yelled until my thoughts became hoarse.
The tires crunched the gravel of the driveway.

Hiss

The hiss of early morning sprinklers reminded you of the rattlesnakes back home. It made you instinctively curl your toes inward and pull your feet back. This place could not be more different from home.

This place was behind a mechanized wrought iron gate. A labyrinth of cul de sacs, grass so green it looked fake, and black cars in the drive way. Even though you hadn’t been home in years, you didn’t fit in here.

The knife was buried deep in the pocket of your double knee jeans. The pockets going almost down to your knees. You worried the blood may soak through, but that seemed the least of your worries as you made eye contact with an elderly man bending down to pick up the morning newspaper.

No matter what way you sliced it. You were suspicious.

You let your eyes linger on the man’s for too long. His brow furrowing as his wife calls for him inside. Yet he doesn’t pull his gaze away.

Later, he would tell the police how your eyes looked like pure evil. How you walked with no particular destination in mind. How different you looked.

You’d hear the sirens in your hotel room that night. It wouldn’t be long before a police officer showed up at the front desk with a warrant and the maître d would show them to your room.

They’d kick down the door in near silence and snap the handcuffs on your wrists. The TV would be on and her photo on screen. The true killer on the news with tears in her eyes. Her hands shaking with the memories of blood and yours relax against the metal as you remember taking the knife from her hands and placing it in the pocket of your jeans.

The days following your arrest, word would spread that the landscaper was to blame. The men and women of the neighborhood kept close watch on their gardeners, burying the garden sheers in the back of the shed. The first time they’d stepped foot in it for years.

She would receive flowers, cakes, promises, and wishes in the coming days. None of it was enough.

NaNoWriMo Poetry Challenge: Days 20 and 21! 

30 days, 30 poems. 

Day 20: 

If I could choose a color form myself. 

It would be the color gray. 

Because I’m in between. 

In between life and death; 

Childhood and adulthood; 

Loneliness and love;

Rain and sunshine; 

Location and imagination. 

Gray 

Day 21: 

Words carry heavier artillery than war. 

Words have more casualties; 

And refugees than any war. 

Words attack and heal; 

Bind and free. 

Words can blind us and open our eyes. 

Words demand and conform. 

Words are more powerful

Than any weapon on Earth. 

NaNoWriMo Poetry Challenge: Day 17! 

30 days, 30 poems. 

I’m used to being interrupted, 

And told, I’m too young to know. 

As if my age has any bearing, 

On right or wrong. 

I’m used to being underestimated. 

Being told I’m not strong enough, 

That I never will be. 

I’m used to being overestimated

And taken advantage of. 

I’m used to being told that someone else,

Knows what’s best for me. 

I’m tired, exhausted. 

Of hate, of sorrow, of loneliness, of blame

I wish the world would take a nap 

And make up its mind.