Welcome to Labrys, your student-run art and literature collective of Smith College.

My parents fell in love over tea
Back in China, my father was very poor
Said the only rich thing he knew how to do
Was brew a delicious cup of tea
On days he saw my mom, he’d wash his face - put on a shirt
Pluck the lilies, dandelions, and chrysanthemums
Straight off the ground, soak them in hot water.
There were no birds, no bees. Only flowers

My father tells the same story
Clumsy words nailed into broken floorboards
Embarrassed by the creaks they make

          “I was the stud uhh––”
          “Muffin?”
          Stud muffin. I had pale skin, plastic watch
          A bike
          All women love me
          I go so fast and both my feet off the floor, you know?

Repeats himself then laughs like a sledgehammer

He doesn’t talk much anymore
Looks at his feet a lot as he walks
Stopped making tea for women he wants to come over
          “Is that how you met mom? Did she see you on the bike?”

He taught me that a loud man
Can be muted by all the times
He was never heard or spoken to
Force-fed and swallowed his words and sentences
To forget how hungry he is
“How far have you traveled?”
Wears his shoes past the soles
“Do you remember where you’re going?”
Then still keeps them
Approaches subway posts and jail bars like a shy lover
Raps his knuckles on the metal
Just to hear the echo
          “What were you like as a child?”

          I always remember, when I drive to pick you up from babysitter
          I watch you from the mirror
          You’re always smiling –
          So, so big.
          And I think, how does it all fit, you know?
     How does it all fit on your face?

He told me that people saw further
When their eyes got smaller
And I think about the pouches hanging from his
The way he holds pictures far away to see them
But he never did smile much

The day my father ran away
My mom drove a car for the first time in ten years
I waited for her to cry but she didn’t
Only on the day he came back. The day he came back,
I caught him washing his face in our bathroom
And I knew then, Heartbreak,

Is falling in love with too many people only to realize
None of them are you
Dad, I didn’t understand then but now I’m trying to
Tell me,
When you rapped your knuckles on the door of an empty house
Were you waiting for an echo, hoping it’s the same as an answer?
When you drank the weight of oceans in shot glasses
Did you mistake drowning for swimming?
You
Looked so ashamed by your sadness
By the time that passed you by

You held your hands under the faucet
Paupered words begging your bruised lips to open
You told me
You just bought yourself a bike
A rusty, purple bike
For twenty dollars
You like to ride it around the block with your knees up to your chest
          “We’ve been looking for home a long time now.”
          “My feet are tired.”