For Love to exist Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022)

On the bond between mother and daughter.

Art by Bonnie Huang.

It’s ok if you’re not proud of me

This is the exact moment I started crying.

I wonder if I’ll ever say that to you

My birth giver, my DNA, my mother

To let you know that I know you’re not proud

Maybe I already have from what has happened

Late nights coming home

Tattoos

The sleepovers

My undefined queerness

Do you still see me as Vietnamese or am I behaving 

in the ‘Western’ ways now?

You need not be proud of me to still love me

All at once

In another life I would be happy just doing laundry and taxes with you

I wish it could have been you 

To sit in the silences

To do LIFE with 

If we stopped loving each other to let go of each other like this 

Because we could do nothing but it would still be something to me. I digress

Because I want the good to exist

Everywhere

Because it does exist

Whether you are here

Or in my mind

All at once

Nothing matters

Alternatively, I am relinquishing my control of these matters

They do matter. I’m choosing for it not to bother me 

I’m learning that to have no expectations means to be less disappointed 

Even if everything Did

Does

Will

Matter 

All at once