Yiqi Things

Try telling a bobcat not to snarl or sneeze or put its tiny paws on your feet.

Might as well command the moon not to charge spells or wishes, to cleanse the bird feeders of their secrets.

Ever wonder what man's best friend would tell you if you could speak their language?

Would there be words you could hear like you hear the sirens of the fire brigade or would it sound more similar to insight from your own spirit?

Maybe it's your voice maybe it's an alternate universe trying to have a second chance with the hands you have, with the feet you have, the affinity for base-jumping or tight-rope walking without a harness.

Could be the sigh of relief, of recognition of telling another person, "I know exactly what you mean."

The world can go up in flames or sink into purgatory an infinity of levels below ground.

And all shall still be well.

-- yiqi 4 June 2026 2:27 pm

~!~

The first line came to me while I was working on a freelance project downloading PDFs, converting them to JPGs, making minor adjustments, uploading them to a repository, and listening to this Mandarin pop mix.

I had to pause the work and write out whatever might roll out of my fingers. I've been replaying the previous night (or technically wee hours of this morning) of having an impromptu conversation with someone who has the loveliest eyes. I've seen many aesthetically pleasing irises -- gems of greens and blues or darkness like a void without the menace.

But these eyes smile. It's not often that I get to look at someone's face long enough to realize what I'm seeing beyond genetic material.

I was also doing my best to keep my gaze from drifting down to this person's torso. Is this what guys experience when they're doing their best not to keep looking at a woman's bosom no matter how ornately or casually it's adorned (eg, evening gown with a push-up effect vs corset chic vs lingerie vs tank top vs oversized t-shirt)? It's one thing to admire another person's corporeality because it's a work of art on account of nature and nurture; it's something else to recognize that there are archetypes aplenty under their skin. What (mis)adventures have they had in the current or another life? The more I wonder aloud, the more I think I should just start flash-fictioning some very niche whimsically uncanny fantasy. Nothing too strange, add a bit of sensuality, absurdity, and a traveling companion in the form of a shape-shifting vertebrate that has limited human speech.

Does anybody know the troubles you've seen? Your limbs are parallelograms.

Did you impale yourself, slingshot went wrong archery even more wrong?

I hope no one tries to make a harp out of you.

-- yiqi 2 June 2026 11:34 pm

Do you see it? I can't see it. Not so clearly not anymore not by the crescent bridge not by the brackish lake.

These faces aren't real, the excitement fabricated with formulas and dehydration of drinking water, of cleaning water.

Are we now competing with each other to tell folktales without the folk for they've perished from the fires?

Not to be put out or redirected. So any home even dug into the hills were forced to be ovens.

-- yiqi Memorial Day 2026 10:45 pm

~!~

every time i put the seer out of my mind she finds a way back into the center of my palms

a retest proctoring offer for the blacksmith apprentice is again rescinded without notice a third chance to demonstrate competence i may not suggest

now that the apothecary has reemerged from travels from slumbers and has left behind a souvenir by the ice box i've become of two minds

does it feel like juggling or reading three books at once i passively set aside all of them my entreaties, random greetings came back with the abyss of a forgotten evening

the seer draws in my hand and i smell iron the seer opens her mouth and i taste blood the seer wishes to rappel down into the bottom of the ocean

i've yet to go down there i don't know what lives what dies what is capable of living parallel stories except for the one i see in dreams.

-- yiqi 19 May 2026 12:15 am

~!~

Disregarding the "Do Not Intrude" sign on the Quartermaster's door would not have been a risk worth taking a few days ago, but after the late night and early morning I had, I was ready to suffer any consequence beyond the sliding verawood door. I leaned into the handle and barely had to push at all to open it.

"Oh," the Quartermaster projected from the top of a spiral staircase in the middle of the library. "What happened to you?"

And then all the imposing stoicism I was clenching from the moment I stepped foot inside the palace to reaching this room fluttered like powder into the ether.

"Yes, I need a new rib cage, but you should see the other guy," I began before the Quartermaster could take a wild guess. "He probably needs new knees, definitely new wrists, and a new fake eye."

"It was that exciting?"

"No, he just didn't know how to take a hint. I was instructed to throw him off the balcony of the grape vine trellis so that he would land in the new moat, but he kept trying to fight back."

The Quartermaster nodded. "And I didn't mean your chest. What happened to your face?"

And there I was hoping nobody would notice.

"The High Priestess is getting a new mirror for the temple entrance...and I walked into the side of it when it was being transported through the rose gardens."

But I wasn't there to see the Quartermaster to talk about getting new ribs (I could count two sticking out through my skin and my entire upper back felt like a baby elephant wanted to be friends) or apparently an ice pack for my face. I had that dream again last night, the one where the new map maker asked me to hold a scroll case, a hilt, and a meat mallet made of different materials and evaluate them based on texture and ease of manipulation.

"How was it different from the other dreams of the same map maker making the same request?" The Quartermaster asked as he descended the stairs and approached me.

"I could actually feel each object in my hands where before I never could get a proper grip, and with each squeeze of the bamboo scroll case, the bone hilt, and the meat mallet made of iron, he started to speak; unlike the other dreams when he just stared at me with his mouth open."

"What did he say?"

"I'm not sure, but it sounded like 'not on any maps,' and then he screamed."

The corners of the Quartermaster's mouth lifted just enough for me to see his newly sharpened teeth.

I shook my head.

"You know I wouldn't insist if it wasn't necessary to see what happens next before you have another dream whenever that may be."

I sighed in acquiescence. "But not the torso."

The Quartermaster bit into my left thigh, letting me use his shoulders to steady myself as my vision seared into a blinding gold until I saw the map maker grabbing at his chest as my hands were still enclosed around the meat mallet.

I sank to the floor.

"You've been avoiding seeking the High Priestess's counsel on these dreams, why?"

"Because she isn't going to tell me anything I don't already know," I muttered more to myself.

"And that is?"

"That I am the one that binds pleasure and pain together, and if I don't want to hurt anyone unintentionally, I cannot give them any comfort or amusement either."

"What would the Empress say?"

"She'd probably give me a hug, but not before she gave me that look that says I knew what I was doing but didn't think it could be real."

The Quartermaster slow-blinked like a cat and assured me that my new rib cage would be ready in the chapel.

-- yiqi 15 May 2026 12:49 am

Original pic cred: Rick Rothenberg, unsplash

~!~

I know it's not a poem, but I like it more than a lot of the other flash fiction I've written here. We'll cross-list it.

I had a conversation with someone that made me think about myself from as much of an outsider's POV as I can reasonably get since I live in my head. And I know a few things with less certainty than I did before...

I also witnessed something that I'd never seen before... mere inches away. And then when I was a few feet away, part of what happens in this very short piece of writing bolted upright inside the muse. It started coming together when I was washing my feet, and then I started listening to Sermon's Of Golden Verse album, and everything else came out...

I count these occurrences, sending the fishing line into the water three separate times, each one towards a unique spot along the river front.

Will the fish bite, will you feel a tug, will you pull up a plastic pail or get the catch you were hoping for?

I'm the catfish in the water, better to eat than to behold, but do I want to be your lunch or dinner get stuck on the bait sparkling in the sunlight or go down into the gullet with one swallow of a beak large enough to break through ice?

Test your might, just a thought on a whim maybe you'll be the saving grace that keeps this world afloat for another day.

The humility is strong with this one, the hubris is only slightly stronger with the ultimate boss to beat.

I want to say I like it because I can't honestly come with an evaluation of disliking it.

There are moments when I truly do like what I see and hear, the punches and grunts, the bodies hitting walls and floors, the blood dripping down faces.

Even so, even when Karl Urban and Josh Lawson stole the show with their quips and sighs and getting off the ground repeatedly, I can't hide the overall compulsion to call this Mortal Kombat II more of a mediocre compote.

-- yiqi 9 May 2026 8:35 pm

Yes, I watched Mortal Kombat II (Simon McQuoid, 2026) today. After a few days of successfully refraining from reading reviews (mostly because I did not want to be dissuaded from experiencing it at a theatre), I took in a late matinee and am not sure I think it's worth consuming at the cinema.

I adored Mortal Kombat (Paul Anderson, 1995) and its cheesy acting and not-very-intimidating puppetry effects, but I was never bored and never felt like fast-forwarding or thinking the body trauma was gratuitously slice-and-dice. (And hello, one of the best (action/video game) movie theme songs ever). There were many scenes and close-ups in this new film where I thought, "gross for gross sake?" And then when the ending credits came up, I saw James Wan's name, and it all made sense. It's been a very long time since I played any Mortal Kombat video games, so I don't remember if brain spatter and holes in torsos are gameplay norm.

The film's opening introduces the character of Kitana (young one played by a very cute and perfectly scowling Sophia Xu and older one played by a less scowling Adeline Rudolph) as well as the big boss to beat, Shao Kahn (Martyn Ford). I couldn't help but notice the costumes and sets as signifying "these are costumes and sets; the artifice is obvious; it kinda reminds you of Young Hercules the TV show, doesn't it? with just a bit of a higher budget... so perhaps more like Legend of the Seeker."

To the film's credit, I still had a solid B-/C+ time and never once looked at my watch to see what time it was even when I was thinking, "ugh, I just want to fast-forward to the last fight sequence and then rewind and watch other parts." I also liked how self-aware the film is.... so given the good and the less good aspects of the film, do I give the writer, Jeremy Slater, all the credit?

when you strip away the stories the retellings the word-for-word restating of what just happened and what could never or certainly not in this lifetime

when you pin back the face-framing wisps and wipe off the eye shadow then trade the icing on top for the bamboo sandals what remains?

what is truly present when it's not a regurgitation of the day's or week's event space?

what is actually missed when the diner booths sit empty even as the jukebox changes records as it always has is it the person standing in front of the mirror or the reflection waving back?

-- yiqi Cinco de Mayo 2026 9:20 pm

Original pic cred: Mathias Reding, unsplash

~!~

turn the tables to sand wipe the tahini sauce off with a slice of ham did the shadow of Ganesh make you trip and fall or did the exhalation of Kuanyin catch your feet before you could get a good grip on the vines draped all over the walls

is this scene a dark comedy or just the comedic relief in an otherwise very serious and very bleak treatise on the time-space continuum

i'm just trying to eat this steak i've been hunting down for weeks and now i guess i have to laugh at myself for insisting upon knowing precisely what you're thinking

when i'm the one banging on cymbals and dangling root vegetables in places you're not allowed to reach or that have been closed to me for renovations suddenly without notice

and i have to make peace with the detours back to the junk drawer in your kitchen and the pleated skirts you forgot to give away.

-- yiqi 26 April 2026 2:07 am

~!~

Another one that poured out of my fingertips while listening to Chelsea Wolfe.

unbutton me

right down these hastily stitched broken sea shells sold farther from the seashore than the billboard would have anyone believe was a quarter mile from the shoreline

but who's counting

the centuries the epochs the ascensions and descensions of the gluttonous and prideful that we've outlasted somehow even when the food was scarce and the liquid courage outlawed

until they came to their senses

and we could roam around without a care without fear that we'd run out of medicine or honey packets or hands as smooth as minxes

you slept through the Crusades i hid from the Inquisition you tore down wooden beams i made lots of fake IDs we never fought to be right but there was too much wrong to leave sprouting around like weeds

what do we do now with our gifts this proven immunity against mortality with the stench of dullness slowly taking shape again at the edge of civilization

-- yiqi 25 April 2026 2:00 am

~!~

the language of abominations hides in plain sight

i meet your gaze with the temerity of a fire escape newly painted and free from rust

if it's time for reconciliation if it's time for communion you must knit me a handkerchief in the shape of more than a square with more than your initials in the form of a daisy

bake me a cake build me an igloo to keep me cool in high temperatures

or wait until there's a better bridge or more convincing hand to play than the first one that could best an amateur with a violin.

-- 21 April 2026 1:30 am

~!~

The first line came to me when I was trying to convince myself to brush my teeth and go to bed and listening to Chelsea Wolfe's song "Halfsleeper."

Is that the best you can do two boiled eggs folded into a crepe made of blended carrots that you found in the grab-n-go refrigerator of the corner store?

When was the last time anyone said anything about blended carrots?

Is this your most creative liberty the most substantial chorus available to you during those hours of focused group non-think?

Or is there an artful dodger in your midst, swiping all the meaningful greeting cards and replacing them with paper straws, or worse, paper hearts?

-- yiqi 17 April 2026 11:41 pm

~!~

your messiah works in a ramen bar ladling broth and grilling dumplings without a skipped note or dropped plate watching him is oddly satisfying

one mission a conveyor belt of order of operations that never looks up

what kind of music keeps him going which menu item does he make himself when the patrons have departed and the full moon spills itself through the ceiling window.

-- yiqi 8 April 2026 10:01 pm

~!~

Taken with my Samsung S21+. There was another biker on the passenger side of my car. The biker in the red and black jacket in the photo below turned around and gave the third biker an acknowledgment greeting of some sort. He had a scruffier mise-en-scene and less sporty of a bike.

And a self-portrait taken at one of my favorite non-Starbux coffee shops.

After some bittersweet cocoa powder smeared across our mouths, making reality harder to swallow, a sheet of comprehension (maybe temporary, maybe just fragile) has wiped the palette clean.

You fan out your cards across the checkered table cloth, each an ambassador for your what-ifs and trepidations of following the faint footsteps my boots have left in the sand.

You're hoping I can feed you sugared berries, refreshing mint dreams or formidable, piquant wraps to make your skin sing.

Still hoping even when I've removed myself from such contention, and I won't take it personally if it's too hard for you bear.

To be so close to something you could maybe smell, possibly squeeze, pet like it's a tired and cranky bunny but not eat.

So why is it in moments of neither-here-nor-there, when I'm catching my breath or looking at illuminated gemstones, I can imagine you standing there grinning like you just ate the last of the cookies or discovered the proper way to time-jump across the galaxy.

-- yiqi 2 April 2026 10:00 pm

Pic cred: Yns Plt, unsplash

~!~

what happens when the knight slays all the monsters eating the sheep and decapitating the young men of the village and there's nothing left to eradicate?

where do you take the brutes that only wish to fight in the sun light and refuse to pick up a fist or a stick underneath the silvery moon beams?

do you find more threats that need neutralizing? deliberately offend the good senses of the ladies at lunch and wait as those with more punching power than patience will take the stage?

how do you convince the beekeeper his hives are too close to the nursery without assaulting his life's purpose when all there is to it is to move the queen one courtyard over and all the hive will follow?

it's not like you're trying to kill the bees.

-- yiqi 28 March 2026 9:42 pm

~!~

You ever wonder whether or not what gets you to the present can't get you to the future? Or who's in a worse situation: Batman without his tool belt or Superman with retrograde amnesia?