By the apartment complex next to mine, on the corner of the garden that meets the concrete stairs, there used to grow little orange flowers. They were small and delicate, with bright orange petals, with purple dots and golden pistils, and bundles of green leaves. I’d pick them every time I went outside and bring them back to my house. I’d place them in water cups and they’d wilt within the day.

1
            I am confronting an SAT mock test at eleven o’clock at night when my parents tell me to pack up necessities and leave the house immediately. In the last few days, I had read posts on neighborhood lockdowns every minute: restrictions on Covid in Beijing are tightening day by day, and the rumor of a citywide lockdown was spreading like wildfire.

Trigger Warning: Mentions of rape, violence, objectification of women. 
I hope for the flowers of my language to intrigue the Reader enough for this piece to warrant publication, for I offer no unfamiliar thoughts: only reminders. I surmise that, upon consuming my chronicle, the Reader will remember that She had identified Herself in it once; amendments will abound. I see no medium for this other than through publication; a voice unheard is rendered voiceless. So begins the Tale of the Ideal Woman.
​​~~~

i.
the smell of cinnamon sifted throughout the corners of the house,
filling the air with sweet desire and the guilty pleasure of gluttony.
i was young; foolish and naive, though i make no claim or promise that i am no longer both.
a child until i was old enough to cross the street
to tell the neighbors to leave my brother alone.
i used to coat my toast in cinnamon like the salty taste of a lost childhood coated on my mind.
i don't like cinnamon anymore.

July 7, 2015 ​

The 2018 World Happiness Report named Costa Rica the happiest country in Latin America - not all that surprising when Costa Rica has for years topped global happiness rankings, alongside the usual Scandinavian suspects of Norway, Sweden and Denmark. The same year, though, the UN Development Program named Costa Rica one of only three Latin American countries that has seen a rise in economic inequality since 2000. In 2018, the income of the richest 20 percent of Costa Rica's population was 19 times higher than that of the poorest 20 percent. Currently, around 38 percent of Costa Rica's total income goes to the top 10 percent of the population, leaving around 20 percent of the population in utter poverty. 

​Sel sent me a postcard from Paris, made a phone call from Montevideo, and mailed a package from Nepal.

​I wrote back to her - my fingers wrapped tightly around the wooden colored pencils she sent me last summer, the ones engraved with poorly translated Romanian phrases in gold.

Let’s start with the black dress. 
​
The lady at the checkout turned it upside down as she tried to remove the security tag pinned through the bowed collar while checking for the final time, “You like the style? Is this the right size for you?” I nodded. I did like the dress. It was one of those rare ones that fitted my small waist perfectly. It was one of those that fitted my very own, strict criteria - not too bright, not too ostentatious with pearls or glitters, and not above the knee. ​