afternoonnap

grapefruit red streaks bleeding down my fingertips i’d open a pomegranate for you my dear, dig chipped nails into granular pieces how else to express my love except to peel it away to make you stay longer, for me or for you? longer, tear the soft grape skin and expose it sunkissed in rubbery rawness, plump and puffy won’t you stay for a kiss? He said, lean in if you have a moment to spare, of enlightenment but i don’t want you there or anywhere, the needle-tip-miniscule figs seeds dotting the wa...

I don't usually write book reviews. I'm usually hit with a sort of profundity when I read, like, "oh yes, I can feel the sublimity, though I don't really understand how to express it in my own words, yet it's there, and maybe I should feel lucky that I can perceive it". Books have that effect on me. Yet because I need to practice writing for Lang, and because recently I have been encouraged to write by Damian and because one of my essays was out of two samples that were chosen to be read by th...

I never went onto Instagram when I was happy, and I was happy whenever I was outside and hanging out with people, seeing them face-to-face. I only ventured there when I was feeling bored, or lonely, or stressed out, or feeling distressed, seeking for validation or distraction from the problems pressing into me. I got those drug-like dopamine hits and left feeling distracted and a bitter lingering feeling that I was not adequate, that I was missing out. I resisted the idea of deleting Instagram ...

There's only one person that reads this blog. Damian. So here, I'll write about you because frankly, you've been on my mind a lot recently. First of all, I think this has made me realize what it means to have independence. I'm almost 17. I should be able to make my own decisions and handle the consequences of my actions. For some reason it seems like dating was almost taboo for me. "It'll distract you", "make your grades drop", etc. etc. But isn't that what it's going to be like in college anyw...

To be a teenage girl nowadays is a life that is centered on material goods. How to look good: Nails: Manicures, pedicures Hair: Hair straighteners that costs $800 (I forgot the brand name that they suggested), curlers, blonde highlights Makeup: Mascara, eyeliner, foundation, blush, fake lashes Shoes: Uggs, Adidas Campus Tops: Cardigans, sweaters, crop tops, Patagonia, Hollister, SHEIN, Brandy Melville, Lululemon, Aritzia Bottoms: Skirts, jeans, canvas pants Jewelry: Earrings, necklaces, rings, b...

Midnights Nights and nights of ceaseless Door-shutting, faucet-closing, electronic-checking, face- scrutinizing, bladder-squeezing —and yesterday, laundry-prodding; getting to a point where your mind is on the brink of destruction, collapse, internal combustion; forced-out tears on the red edge of nerves; stalking, diluted acid like psychotic scribbles of nearly dried-out markers on a blank sheet of sandpaper you just want to fall back into mama’s hold and into slumber, on your pillow that smel...

[Originally published 7/20/24] This post consists of snippets pieced together from my Ethnic Studies final paper last semester. It was the first time I've written a formal essay on a part of my experience that is so vulnerable, but I finally felt ready to talk about it. Last year, my English teacher assigned the poem Self-Portrait Has So Much Potential from the Chinese-American poet Chen Chen. “I am not the heterosexual neat freak my mother raised me to be / I am a gay sipper, & my mother...

I can't believe I am writing a blog post about this. I didn't think that I would ever be ready to. Disclaimer, I don't have an eating disorder. At least from what I know, eating disorders stem from having issues with body image and involve many more symptoms that I did not have. Even if I don't have an eating disorder, I will include a trigger warning... This is more of a personal story. What happened was, I'm not even sure what time this started last year, but I started to have anxiety around...

[Dear Simon] IV. Epistolary An entry in the shower and the last entry I’ll ever write about Simon Hockenberger-Harris At least for now. “Dear Simon, I’ll say I loved you to an extent where— You know I’m the type of person who doesn’t listen to playlists. At least not the whole thing, ever, or in order. I’m the type of person who makes them, and never look back. And obviously I rarely listen to other people’s playlists, maybe only a song or two. But I’ll listen to every song if you wrote a hun...

Y called me about her new crush, C. He's a senior and apparently he's very good at physics. She gets to take advantage of all the resources that C has to offer. I wish I had people like that at my school. We talked about how weird it was that everyone is a gatekeeper here. At my school, you're constantly trying to differentiate yourself and grind until you get out of this town, whereas at her school since there's an application process to attend I feel like your baseline is like already going t...

Sometimes I find it difficult to communicate well with other people, but here are some tips I've gathered from personal experience, watching YouTube videos, and reading Charles Duhigg's "Supercommunicators" I downloaded an app called “Birthdays” that sends me notifications on the days of my friends’ birthdays. If we are particularly close I try to give them a gift communication and being upfront is important and avoiding confrontation will not get you anywhere boundaries should be respected an...

Note: the chain of reasoning in these paragraphs is nonexistent. I might edit this later. [Locking in again and romanticizing school] Bad study habits like procrastinating will bite you in the butt! I had three tests in a row: APES, AP Physics 2, and Linear Algebra. I procrastinated on studying for APES and went to sleep at 3 am that night. Then I was like, "OK something's gotta change". To address the blog post "afraid of locking in", after realizing and analyzing the psychology behind it, I s...

I wrote this piece back in April 2024. It went on from November 2023 to March 2024, although I didn't realize it until February. I'm not going to go into the details of what caused it (and please don't try to speculate). This documents my experience with depression. Mental illness is not exactly a comfortable topic, and for some reason, it is often romanticized on the Internet, but I'm not writing about this to ask for pity or seem "quirky" (if you're wondering why anyone would ever think it's q...

originally published 7/20/24 Per usual, I'm writing this at 1:04 am, a stomach full of Snapple blended with grass jelly tea and Caramel Crunch Frappaccino. This is the summer I became obsessed with energy drinks that will keep me awake until diabolical bedtimes (although I have not tried Celsius). As a first entry, I'll be brief. I'll list some bullet points of sporadic thoughts I've had regarding blogging. Will people think of me differently when they read my blog? Will they see a side of me ...

It is Thursday, July 25, and Week 4 of PROMYS 2024 is almost over. I've wanted to write this for a while, but I finally have time to do it today because my counselor is behind in grading, so that makes me feel a little better about taking breaks. My Counselor: My counselor, P, is a rising sophomore at Yale. Lots of the counselors are very close in age to the students, which makes them easy to talk to. P is very introverted and quiet, and most of our conversations are quite short. I've only had ...

chat let's get started In this NEW blog I will be collecting all the blogs I've written across different platforms and trying to be more consistent!!! ...