My blood spills from a faucet running rivers down the interstate. In dark corners, party lights gasp voices chirp at waxy moon faces. Expensive red wine, I hate the taste yet, with you, I’ll drink anyway.

Wine tastes the way Death’s glance felt tightening around my throat. I will not tell you what happened to 爺爺 (ye-ye) in sweltering Taipei, Taiwan because the lump in my throat is the same lump I felt when 爺爺 (ye-ye) drew his last breath.

I will tell you that on bloodless nights I dream of how my father once crawled the streets I walked. Glasses slipping off his nose, fists clenched shaking furious at the world.

Did the jibber jabber once gnaw at his soul?

Perhaps he once felt the universe’s sorrows as I do now lost in the mystery of it all.

The abrasive knife of hope once cut me down to my knees. How do I stay afloat? I whisper while floating above I-95 above toy cars and toy lives circling through the ebb and flow of endless beauty and human misery.

Perhaps, I’ll tell you of my mother, who on Sundays smiles through waves of hurt and runny mascara dwelling in wedding photos from decades past. She said, “宝贝 (bao bae) someday I’ll be my own.” “Someday I’ll be free.” Oh, but mother, did you mean Mother, did you mean free from me?

I don’t feel like crying tonight for right now I am hung by the color in your eyes and tomorrow I’ll see remnants of shattered glass and see that, really, it –I– was broken by design.