50% : The hardest thing is grieving something that still exists.

Date: 5/12/26

Location: My bedroom, Berkeley, CA

Conditions: Loss

When something is 50 percent gone, it hurts twice as much.

Because when something is 50 percent gone, we remember that part. We remember the gentle laughs, the warmth of love-stitched childhood bedding and the quiet peace of running into mom’s arms when the whole world was on fire. We picture the family dinners in our house now half-held, two bodies at a table for four. We taste mom’s sweet, orange-infused chicken, savoring the notes of dad’s bitter, saltless stew we once knew, that in all of its emptiness, made us full.

Because half of mourning something 50 percent gone is remembering what everything was like at 100 percent. What it was like to be whole, and how it seemed to complete us as a result.

The other half of mourning something 50 percent gone is grieving the tired remains that never wished to stay. Because when something is 50 percent gone, it is also 50 percent there. Standing half of how it used to exist, no telling of which parts stayed, it is incomplete. Yet, it is still there to half-hug, to half-support— to half-love when we are in desperate need of entirety.

50 percent means mourning the half that’s gone, helplessly intoxicating yourself with the half that’s there, and being unserved by the broken whole of what it now is.

We are told time and time again to cherish the 50 percent that is still around. “Be grateful for what you have.” “You’re lucky there’s some left.” And sure, maybe we are lucky. Maybe others out there would’ve given 100 percent of themselves and more to have the 50 percent I now curse the Universe for, the half that seems to swallow me whole.

But the simple truth of the matter is that when something is 50 percent gone, it hurts twice as much. Not simply because so much was lost, or because the memory of completeness was a good one. It’s not because we miss dad or parts of mom or our childhood homes that, while sold, still stand on the street we’d rush down to make it on time for family dinner, four seated at the table, saltless stew in big red bowls.

The pain in fact comes in its hardest waves when we know the two empty chairs are somewhere else, existing as 50 percent or 70 percent or 100 percent somewhere else we may never know, but only ever as the missing half in our own life. It hurts to see the faded light in mom’s eyes, the crumbs of hugs and kisses— only the memory of how things used to be living on in entirety. And it stings to crave that missing half, and subsequent wholeness when you know they could never again be just that.

Because when something is 50 percent gone, it hurts twice as much. Yes, because so much is lost, but mostly because 50 percent still remains.

2025

Date: 12/30/25 - 12/31/25

Location: My bedroom, Torrance, CA

Conditions: That awkward meet cute of nostalgia and hope in the new year parking lot

In 24 minutes it will be the last day of 2025. And as I type this out, I realize the way my fingers twitched at the 4, hovering over the key like some sort of nostalgic teenage girl stuck in the years that once defined her, and quite possibly, still do. I wrote the date as 2024 all the way up until around June. And sure, it was by accident. Brain farts that confused me later on when looking through my journal to find something of a nonlinear documentation, a time portal, one could say.

I think it was just my reluctance to let go.

I once cried to my mom when I was little saying, “I don’t want to grow up.” She brings this up quite often, and we share gentle laughs and sweet smiles over this wholesome memory of a child basking in the comfort that is a carefully curated childhood. I find it endearing. But I also find it flaming with truth— untouched after all of these years, though joined by new hopes in the future and excitement for each passing year. But under the surface of ambition, I am still that little kid crying to her mom. I don’t want to grow up. And part of me wonders if that’s why 2024 magically appeared on my paper, as if I wasn’t holding the pen from which the powerful, date-writing ink bled from. Passive, subconscious. This is who I was when I wasn’t thinking. A little kid stuck in 2024.

But in 17 minutes, it will be the last day of 2025. A year I will write on my paper until June of 2026, when once again, I have broken the involuntary, controlling habit. The backs of my mind grasping onto whatever remained of this year, the light I’ve found against a backdrop of pitch-black darkness. The 5 on the paper may appear as a brain fart to you. But to me, it is the tears falling down 5-year-old me’s cheeks as I yearned to stay 5 years old. Mourning the escape of my youth, the fleeting nature of each passing age, each passing year.

Sometimes I play montages in my mind— something of a film reel starring my fondest memories, and the people that made them such. When I play the 2025 one, I see many things. I see falling in love with many things— life, my friendships, a boy, tortilla crepes and new art forms and rainy streets that I once cursed at for their moist inconvenience. I see breaking— of the roof that always gave me shade, someone’s heart then my own, the zipper of my favorite purse and self-written records and mental walls that have been around forever and a breakfast plate or two and myself. I see searching, I imagine this one as a flashlight in a dark space where nothing, except for a few brilliant stars studding the sky above, are present. Just me and nothing. In this scene I see searching— for answers that aren’t mine to find, reasons to leave, reasons to stay, evidence of a dream being possible and keys that I swore I left on my bed and indicators of toxicity and my left airpod that always escapes my ear while I’m asleep and “for the plot’s” and why I fucked up and who I am in contrast to who I always thought I was supposed to be.

In 1 minute, it will be the last day of 2025. And as I look back at all of these things, I realize that 2025 will bleed from my pen long into 2026, powerfully and maybe with purpose— that is still something I’m searching for. I’ll remember every moment that made this montage beautiful, and how everything I did had thousands of sides to examine it from. Fuck ups and finds, fights and falls, and many other f-nouns I could come up with if given a minute more.

But for now, it is 3 minutes into the last day of 2025. And if it means I bring even a handful of the times from 2025 into 2026, I’ll look at the incorrect date written on my page and smile fondly.

Just the same kid that doesn’t want to grow up, manifesting as a 5 in place of a 6.

And a lot of the other things this kid learned too.

Excerpt: a part of me

Date: 5/5/26

Location: My bedroom, Berkeley, CA

Conditions: Post meetup heartbreak and peace

I write this not necessarily from a place of closure, but from a place of acceptance, a place of appreciation, a place of peace. I don’t know what the future holds, neither of us do. In fact, it seems as uncertain as ever for the both of us. But if there’s one thing I know, it’s this. My heart will hold you, and eventually let go little by little, day by day. The seasons will change, and so will I. Maybe I’ll fall in love, and get my heart broken again and break my own and break myself because life has a way of letting that happen. I’ll live my life how I always have, hopefully curving the edges more cleanly, streets more known and those unknown walked down with hope and more confidence than the day before. New experiences will come, old ones will go, but will inevitably remain a part of me.

And somewhere in the mix of growth and the color change of leaves, and the the way sunny skies fall cloudy instantly and bright blue the next moment, hands on the clock never resting, one thing will remain the same.

You’ll always be a part of me.

Ovens, overalls, and 11:11

Date: 3/19/25

Location: My bedroom, Berkeley, CA

Conditions: Wishing during The Fall

It’s actually stupid how I think about you without even trying when I see the clock strike 11:11.

I actually kind of hate it.

Evil and twisted, looking at the 4 lines side by side, as if a hope I whisper out into the open will actually stitch the canyons between us

Like the overalls I sat stitching last night, because I so desperately wanted to wear them

With a hole now patched, seams like new, I thought maybe you’d see me in them and remember that these were the exact clothes I wore when we first met.

When you first came up to me, stars in your eyes.

I still see these stars, and that’s why 11:11 doesn’t belong to anyone or anything but you right now.

And as I write this out, I realize just how hard I have fallen

A burn so slow, you’d swear my hands are on fire

Hands away from the oven, my mom would say

I never thought I’d come close in such a way— but I’m addicted to your warmth, even if most of the time it burns deep beneath my skin

The thought that we cannot be anything now, and we may not be anything ever

But for now, we just are.

I pinch myself from this dream sometimes, hoping I can wake up and forget everything.

That suddenly, you could mean nothing to me,

Grasping onto my life before you for dear life, holding on like its my last breath of oxygen because if I fall,

The world tainted golden below me might just kill me once I finally hit the ground.

The truth is, I’m still sleeping, but not at rest

Dreaming up everything we are and could be, tossing and turning anxiously without even knowing it

It feels out of my control, fate my puppeteer

As we fall into each other's circles just enough to make 11:11 a time for you.

And I’d be damned if I woke up.

I’d be damned if I emerge from golden world just because it is a prettier version of reality

I’d be damned if I pulled my hands away from the oven just because I’m afraid of the burn, when the warmth from its blazing fire has kept me from freezing over for a while now.

I’d be damned if I chose to leave you behind, depriving myself of one of the greatest, most beautiful pains I’ve intoxicated myself with in a while.

So I look forward to 11:11, when I may look to you.

Monsters Under My Bed

Date: 3/17/25

Location: Wuster Library, Berkeley, CA

Conditions: Procrastinating a paper

The moment slipped away from me, once again. Only this time I was a stranger to silence, the deafening, broken fragments of noise attempting to befriend me. I had avoided them all this time, convinced I could look past the monsters under the world’s bed. That I could lay peacefully atop the covers, staring at a ceiling of glow-in-the-dark stars, alone with my thoughts and the parts of life I chose to understand. But nothing, not even the scariest of monsters, can be forever stowed away in the eye of oblivion and protection. So, with a creeping crawl and curious venture, they made themselves known, claiming space in the dimly-lit room and my barricaded consciousness.

And it is scary. Not because these creatures have violent claws or sharp teeth— but because they are reality. Personified pieces of pain and conflict— products of the sickening spin of earth. I knew the monsters existed. But they never stepped into the light. And maybe it's because I’m finally old enough or brave enough or smart enough to confront them, but sometimes I wish they would nestle in the darkness once more. Hidden from my sight and mind, a perfect world preserved stupidly.

But the tensions all around sharpen, and so do the claws of the creatures. My vision sharpens and my impulse does too— I’m aware all the time. I turn the lights on in the middle of the night, I stare down the monsters viciously. I’m vulnerable and curious just as they are, surrendering to something I once ignored, but now I forever know. They flood my room, my bed’s underside an endless trapdoor to the worst parts of life. But in some weird, conflicting way, I don’t wish to close it anymore.

Maybe these monsters are a lot more similar to me than I thought. Maybe we could be friends in another life— maybe if I had lost a hair tie or stuffed animal I could’ve ventured into the darkness under my bed much sooner, before it found its way to me.

But maybe that’s what makes it beautiful— I had been a stranger to them all this time.

The night is growing older and so am I, the cruelty of clockwork sending me to bed. I’m restless and awake and somehow at peace. The glow in the dark stars illuminate my room, and I see the monstrous shadows in my peripheral. It’s just the way it is now— and that’s ok. Or at least it will be.

I turn on the light, staring at the monsters wide-eyed and broken-hearted. Those vicious bits of reality towering over a place once peaceful and safe.

“Welcome back,” I whisper.

7:50 P.M.

Date: 5/24/25

Location: My bedroom, Torrance, CA

Conditions: Reflecting on why I love watching the sunset so much, after coming home from watching the sunset

Today, at around 7:50 PM, the sun fell beyond the horizon once again. It was hazy and faded, making it appear as a distant memory, or forgotten photograph. Its colors melting into nothingness, the sky exhaled in a deep orange and returned to the state of dim gloominess it knew before.

To her, it was anything but faded. The sun’s departure was a colorful, wondrous thing. Rippling with potential. She attentively followed the faded circle beyond what seemed like the edge of the earth, remembering this moment as one where wishes were granted.

“Make a wish before the sun goes down.”

These words were uttered to her around two years ago. She had never heard of this before, but turning down superstition in the eye of attributed “silliness” was never within her interest. For as long as I can remember, she embraced these beliefs like they were fact, and saw it as an open-armed welcome to her deepest desires. As a remedy to the parts of life she couldn’t fix or change. In all its mysteriousness and sorcery, every shot at a wish was restoration of hope. So with each loose eyelash, birthday candle, and melting sun, she took that shot.

Day after day, she chased the sunset. She had disillusioned herself into tying her “why” to a stunning sky full of colors and a peaceful return to mother nature. That the reason she was addicted to 7:50 PM was the radiating hues of yellow and orange, accompanied with the periodic arrival of brisk water at her feet.

In reality, it was those ten seconds. Those ten seconds in which the perfect, little circle that illuminated her entire day said its goodbyes, leaving our frame of vision black and studded with stars. The ten seconds where, amidst the sun’s exit, something just as bright and beautiful entered— a dream. In this moment, she could close her eyes, and, envisioning a carefully constructed diagram of her life, hope on the misplotted or yet-to-be plotted points. Above it being a manifestation of her hopes and aspirations, it was a form of planning— curating a future of perfection where her magnificent, overarching goals would walk down a road of helping hands and stepping stools.

And as the overachiever she was, she extended beyond that in her control to the unknown equations of the universe, projecting her dream life onto an endless sky. And she felt lighter each time. Not because her family was suddenly unbroken or because she instantly received a call from the greatest movie director of all time. In fact, nothing she wished for appeared to come true. It was the idea that something beyond herself could assist in her journey, in her determination to build a life from her dreams.

At around 7:50 PM every day, she was no longer alone. And her dream wasn’t either.

And so she drove. And she walked. And she hitched rides to the sand where she could stand at the beginning of the shore and see a life of her own at the end of the sea. Because in these sacred, golden moments, it didn’t matter if the wishes worked. She was full of hope, supported by a few spectacular seconds where she could envision what she truly wanted. And perhaps persist with the universe on her side.

Because at around 7:50 PM every day, the sun reached beyond what was visible. And so did she. Cascading into a sky of hope, it understood that when all fell dark, luminance would puncture more fiercely and evidently than before, similar to her greatest hopes.

At around 7:50 PM every day, the world recognized a cycle of light and life as that of wishing on tomorrow. And so she wished today, on a tomorrow of her dreams.

She wished.

Five

Date: 2/18/26

Location: My bedroom, Berkeley, CA

Conditions: Deja vu

And just like that, I was me at fifteen years old, feeling five. Sitting at a circular table with teammates I had hoped to like, forced myself into liking, as they talked about boys and makeouts and everything that felt too old for me to know, despite the age I proudly told others I was.

Where I sunk into my seat as I vomited the words out “no I haven’t” like they were poisonous to the touch. Lining my stomach with guilt. Ruminating my gut with embarrassment. How I hated feeling lesser than— unworthy of laughs and giggles at the table as they recounted their thousands of minutes they spent in bathroom stalls and beds, things I now know to not be entirely true at their ripe age of 15. But then again, who was I to say— I was only five.

I didn’t think about this then. Instead, I felt a flashlight in my eyes, a spotlight on my existence— as if everything I hadn’t done stabbed me in a neon armour that made itself visible to every corner of every street. As if my "innocence" was shameful and loud.

It’s such a funny thing how after all of those years of feeling five, that I could return to the same shoes— ones I should’ve grown out of by now. Because last week I sat in a beautifully decorated house with streamers dancing about the ceiling and cookies on the table— and I wasn’t nineteen, I was five.

They talked about beds and bathroom stalls once more. It felt a little more real this time. Speaking of bodies held with such little thought, disposable like the piece of gum I’ve been chewing for a few hours too long now.

And sure, it doesn’t hurt like it did back when I was 15. It doesn’t bother me or tickle my brain with questions and flush my cheeks pink with embarrassment. But all the same, I felt consumed by my own boundaries I have labeled as protective. Swallowed by slowness, tackled by clean hands— whatever that means, anyways. 15 year old me would never call it that. The experiences have arrived, coming and going, stamping a box in the list the girls once presented as indicative of maturity, never doing it for anyone but myself.

Because the funny thing is that this type of thing is always contextual and subjective. And it should be. You could do everything you’ve ever wanted, beneath rustled sheets, affront closed blinds, loud and empty, and walk the line of what you thought was expected of your age by now and what now feels gross. The things once shameful in their distance are now shameful in their closeness.

But it won’t matter. Should’ves and should’ve nots melt into nothingness under a ceiling full of streamers and giggling girls— when suddenly, I am 15 sitting with the mean teammates and their pretty promiscuity and whimsical womanness, if it was ever that.

And suddenly, I’m 5.

A new Friend

Date: 4/13/25

Location: Unit 3, Berkeley, CA

Conditions: Decompressing before bed

I stumbled upon a cave, except this one was unlike any I had seen before. Towering, yet small. A sacred nightmare, that in all of its intimidation, made me feel at home. As I tethered my ship to the shore, my fears and thoughts alike, the cave appeared to look directly at me. It’s once frightening, rugged walls now enclosing me and my secrets lovingly. Who I was, who I am, who I think I will one day be all bordered me in a rippling echo— shattering the silence that once consumed me. I began to wonder— is this cave really any different than the ones I had encountered previously? Or was it I who was different? A louder voice supporting the noise bouncing off the walls, a newfound transparency floating my secrets to the surface— casting the cave as a vision of the greatest friend I’ve ever known? Is this cave really any lighter, or had I finally mustered up the courage to illuminate it, the inner darkness we share now strangers to the present…

As I stood before the cave, the thoughts I promised to leave behind paving the way— I felt found amidst a structure that would normally lose me as I simultaneously lost myself.

Looking at this cave, the large hug of hope in a darkness I once saw as endless,

I could tell we were going to be good friends.

I Like The Rain Now

Date: 10/22/25

Location: My bedroom, Berkeley, CA

Conditions: Just another rainy day, plus some emo feelings

I like fall a lot now. I like the cool chill in the air, the way grey skies reflect in small puddles that line busy streets. I like the sound of the cars passing through the moist roads, it sounds gravely. Almost like rice krispy treats. Crunchy.

I almost fell off the edge of the earth when I felt myself smiling in the rain. The thing I hated the most, the thing I wove so intricately into my anger and frustration. Rain— inconvenient and impractical. Because maybe last year that’s all I cared about. Or cared too much about. Convenience and rightness. Things falling into place as they should, not falling skies.

But a few days ago, I smiled. I liked the smell, a statement from my friends I used to scoff at. “What smell?” I’d say with my nose high in the air, my pretentious ass tied to clear skies and a head in the clouds, if there were any.

I liked the different color umbrellas, and the passing people. The gravely noise of wheels running against the wet street. Rice Krispies. I like the way leaves blended into the sidewalk like some sort of ruined watercolor painting. Except this time, it didn’t feel ruined.

It was peaceful, and I couldn’t help but wonder what changed. Last year, under a crying sky, I held a hand that felt nothing but an imposing, divine love for the rain. I trailed the wet paths with this soul, sheltered by an umbrella we held together, hands interlocking at some points. But even then, I couldn’t like the rain the way I do now.

And yes, maybe this soul changed the way I see the rain. I wrote this in a letter to him. I said, “I will never see the rain the same way again.” And maybe I am finally living up to this statement. Perhaps I finally understand him. Maybe I understand his smile at the sky, hands out to collect the little droplets that built with each passing moment. The way I tried to cancel, but he credited pouring rain to that much more of a reason to see each other.

I’m still not sure if this is it. As a wise, know-it-all nineteen year old that has seen oh so much life, I tie my changing feelings to changing weather as long-sought after maturity. It’s weird when this type of thing shifts so dramatically, and without evident cause. Chill the fuck out bro, it’s just rain.

Yeah, but is it?

Because at this exact time last year, I furrowed my brow as I left my then “home” to walk five steps to my class. Now I live five streets away from class, but my face is relaxed, and I accept the rain in all its abundance. I’ve always known the rain was beautiful, but I never really understood it. I didn’t understand the feeling, the experience of its beauty.

I was an outsider to the rain.

Now, I go outside, into the rain. Changed in some sort of way, I bask in its inconvenience and moisture, letting the water seep into my socks, pruning my feet and sending me into a shiver.

I like it though.

I like the rain now.

TGIF

Date: 1/23/26

Location: My bedroom, Berkeley, CA

Conditions: Major plot twist

It’s 5 PM on a Friday night and I’m convincing myself that taking this time to write out my feelings, with a bag of oreos to my right and a window of bustling streets to my left, will have some healing property as mysteriously effective as crystals or sage.

And maybe this is true. But another part of me feels like I am just feeding my frustration, my helplessness. The wears and tears that decorate my skin— I’m convincing myself that words and rhyme can patch these up, as if the mere image of you walking into class three times a week isn’t making the cuts run deeper.

The point is, I’ll never really know if my writing is harmful or ghost-feeding or misery-inducing or wrong. I’ll write because somehow, seeing my thoughts manifest as statements and em dashes makes them that much more real, and that much more understandable. What a funny concept this is— writing out my mind as if it is some fictitious novel, allowing myself to dissociate and reengage in a life all my own— hungry for plots and progression.

Because it’s 5 PM on a Friday night and I’m convincing myself that this is healing. And maybe it is. Because moments ago I was sad and mixed up and confused, and now, while I am still all of these things and more, I feel a little lighter. Knowing that my pain has been memorialized on paper, the beauty and humanity of simply feeling captured and frozen in time, I feel that I may graciously persist.

And so that’s what I do. Over and over again. Convincing and writing and storing my feelings— writing my mind into tangible existence, like a museum curator does with special objects from all around the world.

Walking around in the exhibits of my life, I smile at the labels I’ve crafted, my brokenness and intactness alike, shining in display cases under a beating sun I seemed to have forgotten in certain works.

And so if this is just another item I am adding to the museum of my mind and heart, I’ll do so courageously and with hope. Not because this isn’t a reopening of my wounds, but because it is an in-depth exploration of it, a basking in its humanness and fluctuation, transforming it into a moment of stasis I may one day revisit with a smile and a little bit of a fuller heart. And maybe, just maybe, you by my side.

A Little Longer

Date: 10/23/24

Location: Unit 3, Berkeley, CA

Conditions: Writing for GAG! Magazine

To a non-earth inhabitant,

You had to be there. It was like someone took black paint and brushed it to opaqueness against

an infinite, empty sky. Like an hourglass had been cut loose, releasing thousands of glimmering

granules into an unspoken pattern— whispers amid this scene of silence, something we call

constellations. And how you would’ve loved it when the sun came up. Dew drops lingered on

the pink petals of tulips dotted throughout the field as the darkness faded into the rearview, and

the brightness tiptoed in.

The sun’s glimmer is something special. I’m not sure how it looks from your perspective, but

here, there’s this instant in time where it collides so perfectly with just about everything. It’s

present in the early dawn when leaves turn golden and in the late afternoons when irises are

lightened in an orange haze. It’s during these moments of beauty that I begin to fall into the

painful gaze of reality, leaving me full of questions. It's contradictory— how could a world so

rare and a life so stunning be minimized to greed?

You might say it’s our human nature. Our inherent need for more overpowers our ability to

breathe in simplicity with a smile. To sit on the shore peacefully and feel a sense of completeness

between the crashing waves and beating sun.

Why then, do we ignore this masterpiece? Why do we fight each other on the grounds we were

gifted? Why are we killing these grounds, the very ones on which we lay peacefully when, in a

special moment, it is simply enough. Anyone on the outside would say this isn’t right.

I do, however, admire some aspects of human nature. We’ve developed technology that captures

this wonderful world and frames it into an everlasting keepsake. We’ve ventured beyond the

endless sky to understand our origins and the greater universe we belong to— an indulgence of

the curious mind that has prompted me to write to you. But all of this has seemed to diminish the

raw, untouched miracles that we were once able to experience without needing anything more.

I guess we just want to hold onto this life a little longer.

You and I are similar in that this feels like a different world. It happens that you were not chosen

to inhabit this planet, but sometimes, in the space between my mind and heart, I willingly drift

away from it all.

Weightless, and at peace, I drift.

Not too far of course, because I have a world to tend to and a life that’s inescapable. But it's in

these moments that I’m under the endless ceiling of stars. Counting the clouds and my

heartbeats. The moon-painted curtain falls all around me, and suddenly, I’m a child of the sun

again, taking in her golden light with a deep breath and a smile.

I wish we could all stay here a little longer.

Until we meet,

Karina Fry

A journal entry by The Sun

Date: 1/2/25

Location: My bedroom, Torrance, CA

Conditions: Feeling inspired by my Astronomy class. Oh, you thought I meant scientifically?

I’ve seen it all. I watch attentively as millions of moments pass by quicker than my own light can illuminate them. Some may argue that I’m too far away to actually notice such things, but the light I discover in the microscopic is the same light I project day after day. It’s reciprocal.

There’s this one little girl who often ventures out to a tarnished creek to collect marigolds for her grandmother. I’ve noticed how the sight of such flowers brings a long-lost joviality and hopefulness into her grandmother’s aging eyes, and how the little girl smiles lovingly at this scene. I’ve seen how the grandmother places them in a jar by the wood-trimmed windows, pulling back burgundy curtains to allow for my light to nurture this reoccurring, but undeniably special gift. I’ve casted my sunlight onto these flowers, spilling over into the grounds the little girl freely dances across as her grandmother embraces her amusement with a gentle laugh.

No matter what time of day, I find my way into this story. I stream into the floorboards and table, the dusty glass and the beautiful yellow petals. In the afternoon I am potent, and hours before nightfall my light coats all moments in an orange haze so fragile that it collapses beyond what’s visible in the matter of minutes. I am at peace, and I am empowered by the love that my light feeds.

On cloudy days, however, I feel powerless. I’m infatuated by the patterns that patch the sky beneath me, but discouraged by the way my light is muffled. By the way the surface of the earth is a little less golden than it was before, and a grey bitterness swallows the ground. By the way everything appears to be matte instead of glimmering. But above all, my heart aches as I watch the marigolds frown beside a dimly-lit window, reaching out to a cloud-filled sky that has dulled my offerings. It’s days like this when I so desperately want enhance my luminosity, to extend beyond my known limit and shine ten times brighter. To shower the world with light until the darkness is overcome, and liveliness is promised for that little plant. For that girl, and for her grandmother.

But left under my control, I remain the same. My view is tainted as I try to catch a glimpse of the girl and her grandmother and the beautiful little flowers by the window. I curse the clouds for their disturbance, I curse myself for my limitations. My contents fall weakly upon the earth, and I hope for greater strength.

And despite my pleads to the sky, extra strength never arrives. Cloudy days pass me by, and the yellow petals wilt beneath a murky atmosphere. The cries of the marigolds begin to sound like my own, and before I have a patch of clearness from which I may view, the plant is gone. The jar remains empty beside the window, the flowers returned back to the earth that birthed them.

And just when the endless days of counting clouds and heartbeats behind to blur in redundancy, inevitably, a clear day falls upon the world once again. The sky is blue, and my light embraces the earth with a warmth that feels like hug from an old friend. The grandmother opens the burgundy curtains as she always does, except this time gold spills across the wooden floors, and the window welcomes my rays with love and appreciation. I watch as the little girl runs toward the window and peers wondrously through the glass. Closing her eyes, she presses her face against the surface of a sunny day, letting out a sigh of relief. I follow her as she runs through the door, almost as if my light has freed her from the dungeon of dark, gloomy days. I continue to trail her steps through the grass and through the creek where she selects a bundle of three perfect marigolds.

My sunlight bounces off of her smile, guiding her back home where she places the marigolds into her grandmother’s hands, smiling at her smile and the way it makes her glow like a child once more.

I smile back, knowing that with time, clear skies always return.

And so do I.

Miracle

Date: 12/29/25

Location: My bedroom, Torrance, CA

Conditions: Returning home from a trip down memory lane

Miracle.

That’s the word that came to mind tonight. As I sat at a table with people I had grown up around, more so people who watched me grow up. Year by year, grade by grade. Halloween parties and days at the school library, where they volunteered to read books to the kids. Every action bundled with the hope of contributing to an idealized childhood— a sweet attempt at being involved and ushering their child’s life into not greatness, but goodness.

But as I sit in the shattered pieces of my family, in the fragments of moments that I once claimed as my very own childhood, I am left sad and confused. The sound of my brother’s name came up multiple times tonight, shared over smiles and wine and cheese, and it wasn’t until then that I realized just how bruised I truly am. Shivering at the sound, not so much the memories— but the idea that it was once something I comfortably and obliviously called out to. How could something rot so quickly, turning into a word that felt almost as explicit as “fuck” when I was ten?

We passed the water around, there were little cranberries floating in it. Festive. Names were passed around just as easily, partnered with sighs and laughs and updates on how each of these people were doing— what they were up to. So many kids I had forgotten about, including my very own brother, and I hate the way I tensed up at the thought of all of them. Like villains I had casted out of my own narrative, because quite literally, that’s what I did, all resurfacing over a table of bead, my consciousness, and self that I claimed to be more mature than the last time I confronted these same names. But maybe, in some wicked way, I was all the same.

We talked of broken homes, how my classmates adapted and equally, how some failed to. Rehab and pregnancy and marriage and stabbing people with pencils— you could have sworn my school was an endless crime scene. I couldn’t help but think about myself— my own experiences and the lingering stench of every bad time, that even after all these years, punctures the air heavy like it was when I was 16. Alone in my room, panic attack and desperate for escape. Amidst all the talk of these kids’ hardship, or at least how we perceived it to be, I was reminded of this girl. How I could have collapsed under the weight that fell from the ceilings faster than I could process the fact. How I could have indulged in substances, maybe lost my way. How I could have run to the end of the earth, saying goodbye to everything I’ve ever known in hopes of making the madness stop. How I could have given in to the dark side of my mind that was crawling into my barricaded consciousness, tearing down the walls I had built to protect myself from falling. Letting go of myself and what everything around me had become, floating weightlessly with a hazy view of the chaos, until everything, unhealthily, went black.

But I didn’t.

I threw myself in books, in the eye of my darkest ghosts urging me to throw myself away. I obsessed over school and studying in hopes that one day it would lead me to somewhere greater than the very place I resided in. The home that felt as stranger to me as passers on the street, and even now, the mere idea of giving up. It’s funny writing this in my room after all this time, when even now, the chaos never seems to end. Everything is breaking once more, harder and faster, when I swore this was impossible. When I swore that the breaking was done. But this appears to be when it happens— when demons revisit doors you closed long ago. “It’s over,” I said. But that didn’t mean something else couldn’t begin.

And even though I’m still fractured and breaking once more, I’ve never felt more whole. My whole life ahead of me— a future that never felt so astonishing, embellished with brilliance and light I keep uncovering in the most unexpected of places. Growing up, one could say I’m doing that. Finding the tune to my song, rewriting my life and how I choose to live it until every ghost that’s haunted me cannot cloud the roads ahead, but rather redirects my life into one of choice rather than inescapable passivity. Because at the end of the day, it is my life. And that is one of the biggest, and funnily, most obvious things I have come to realize. Sure, my life feels like it is happening to me at times, but I, like every one of you, have the power to reclaim it as my own. Painting it to my liking, changing the rules of what once was to what is— this is how I course through, and bluntly, how I stay sane through the madness.

So I persist. And I’m not better than any of the names shared around the table with the bread and wine. I’m no better than someone who collapsed under the trauma, because I did— just more silently. I’m no better for shaking my head at the offer of a drink, or how I never walked away from my dreams and goals because life felt too heavy to hold. I am no better, I am simply me.

A miracle.

But aren’t we all?

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