be a little kinder to yourself.

i want to say it to you

i want sleepy afternoons curled around your back the bed is our safe harbour even though we really should have done the laundry yesterday but that's for tomorrow to think about because you're reaching over with your phone in hand and i'll laugh at the joke because it's you who showed me

the sun's reluctant to set, clinging to the curl of your laughter

i can still feel the clink of the ice cubes in my pink little fizzy drink

i've never liked how they made my stomach tingle, but i liked the way you'd fit your lips

around the same glass, just a sip to taste, eyes electric over the rim

sometimes, i take the long way home, pretending the sunset-stained reflection

i keep thinking, next time, i'll find a way next time but the frequencies of earthquakes have increased the tide has been rising since before i learned how to swim

we're not growing any younger sometimes i think it's better to give up at the start than watch myself turn into a stranger, poisoned by desperation

this world isn't kind, but i want to still believe that we are. or that we can be.

i think i am my father's daughter because passive aggressive silence is how i protect myself and i'm much too smart to choose conflict when i can hide

i am my father's eldest daughter i never learned how to ask for help only how to second guess myself and lately i've been trying to unlearn this sorry excuse for filial piety i've swallowed and choked

we are our father's children and i understand now, their love language is a full fridge, dinner waiting on the table, and refusing to eat before everyone is seated i never liked hot and sour soup but my ma does. but my gran does. so i should be grateful to be given a seat at the table so it doesn't matter i don't matter

i am my father's daughter because he knows i know how to bow my head and 孝順 but i don't think my father knows his daughter

i am only my father's daughter not sweet enough to dote on like his wife not kind enough to spoil like his mother