My first podcast focusing on birthdays. Special thanks to my parents, Ana and Doyle Lian, my brother, Allan Lian, my sister, Aileen Lian, Briana Arrington, Alex Dukes, and to you, for listening. 

Happy Birthday

What is your age?
Your gender?
Location?

What is your favorite color?
What is your favorite secret?

How many people have you walked by today?
How many have smiled at you?

On a scale from 1-10, how neutral are you?

There is a shirt in the back of your closet. Who does it smell like?

Explain the first memory that comes to mind when I say these words:

rock, 
telescope,
care.

When did you lose your virginity?
What is your religious affiliation?

Do you know who you are when you’re sitting on the train?
Do you know who you are when you’re 

waiting

waiting

waiting



Survey

The results are in. The research is sound -

I regret to inform you:
the human is not a pretty thing.

Maybe they’ll release it in the next journal. 
Are we ready for information of this magnitude?

Studies show that they are fickle. 

They fight over skin color and faceless gods.
They make up rules to break them. 

Reckless and remorseful,
tired tyrants that cry without cause. But

They also show 
unpredictable 
strength
and love
and acceptance. 

Complex creatures with the ability to evolve 
and change their minds. 

Living beings 
with

a choice.

An interesting species, I’ll give you that. 


Eureka

1. It’s fall. It’s always fall. Everything is gold, or red, or the color of the sun. I’m never cold.
2. When I walk, there is music, always dripping out a window. Jazz, maybe, the kind I used to hear at bookstores when I was younger.
3. Strangers smile at me. I trust them enough to smile back.
4. I know where everything is, and everything I ever lost is delivered to me in a large box, sealed with a card and a red bow. 
5. I’m never anxious 
6. I’m never tired
7. I’m never lonely 


Dreams

I.

Sorry I
smeared you across my
pillowcase
today

II.

There are good ones but there are bad I 
wish you would have told me how smudged I became how
can I lose someone that looked at me in the morning like I was

the moon 

III.

The heat softened your smile like 
sunlight softened Icarus’ wings and I
fell

fell, fell

IV. 

I asked you if I should wear lipstick

you didn’t give an answer

V. 

Sorry I
smeared you across my
pillowcase 
today 


Lipstick

who am I to judge the paradigm that brought us to this happenstance
a milk carton of a galaxy, pin-pricked with the missing faces of
star-crossed strangers

I’m not fond of the choices that arranged this meeting,
this reminder of past time
a history of almost lovers in a sea of kissing hands

it’s almost 2am and I’m trying my hardest to forget you
to forge a signature worth erasing

to eradicate the idea that we were ever good for each other

it only matters because I’m feeling post-apocalyptic
it only shows when I scrawl feverishly into my beige notebook
a handwritten guide to navigating the universe

one
without
you


After

soggy cereal
uphill biking
setting alarms on Sunday

smell of cold coffee
melting ice cream
swallowing tequila

wet socks
oversized binders
drinking sour milk

getting sick
getting tired
getting lost

limp celery
separated yogurt
losing bobby pins

pending payments
pocketless pants
finding strangers’ bandaids

growing zits
growing up
growing old 


And before I knew it, everything cracked: the glass, the egg, the mug left in the kitchen sink, my skin, my heart, my heart, my hope, my home, my home. Bits of pasta floated at the edge of the charcoal pot.

I didn’t bother to call my mother. I knew she wasn’t home. I messed it up again, I would tell her. It tastes better when you cook it.

When summer ended and everything broke, I gave my brother the fragments: my room, my view, my home, my home. I used to have a place in the house with a bed I grew up with.

That bed moved out with me. 

Pasta

First
generation
American:

I forget 
that you’re Asian.

What’s my Chinese name?
What’s your     real     name?

Where are you                 from?

Do you eat everything with chopsticks?

You’re good at math, but 
you can’t drive.

You’re a Twinkie, 
or
a banana

White on the inside
yellow on the out

Whitewashed, but you can’t be       white.

Sold as American
made in China
(vice versa, of you)

Guess Mom was right,
I’ll always be an A.B.C

American
Born
Chinese 




And this was how it went:
our throats coated in suburbia’s thick glaze,
ice cream kissing our lips,
dripping down our teeth

I consumed religion like cold milk,
smooth and pale,
like pages of a war-torn Bible 
the color of tea, the color of Sunday.

Days didn’t have a number, but it never seemed to matter

The sun etched lines into my growing back and I stared at the trees outside my window.

Sometimes, when I felt small, I stood upon the large rock in my backyard,  
gazing upon the childish plenty that evaded my grasp

while a pale, 
blueless sky 
roamed above me. 


Ashley Lian