Reader

學語言，輸入的主要方式無外互內置語言芯片、外接語言處理機。

前者植入方便，芯片槍一擊即中，耗能低，自體供能即可。美中不足，大部分芯片性能一般，只能維持日常交際這樣子。

外接處理機更復雜些，必須先體檢，測試體能是否達到接入標准。達標就可以去指定操作中心，接受開顱手術，安裝接入槽、系統等一系列硬件軟件。

其費用和風險遠高於芯片。雖然多年前曾有翻譯工人超負荷工作，大腦過載致死亡的案例，但絕大多數用戶與處理機適配良好，可從事各種與語言相關的專業性極高的工作，比如審查思想。

#读诗

Listen: there was a goat’s head hanging by ropes in a tree. All night it hung there and sang. And those who heard it Felt a hurt in their hearts and thought they were hearing The song of a night bird. They sat up in their beds, and then They lay back down again. In the night wind, the goat’s head Swayed back and forth, and from far off it shone faintly The way the moonlight shone on the train track miles away Beside which the goat’s headless body lay. Some boys Had hacked its head off. It was harder work than they had imagined. The goat cried like a man and struggled hard. But they Finished the job. They hung the bleeding head by the school And then ran off into the darkness that seems to hide everything. The head hung in the tree. The body lay by the tracks. The head called to the body. The body to the head. They missed each other. The missing grew large between them, Until it pulled the heart right out of the body, until The drawn heart flew toward the head, flew as a bird flies Back to its cage and the familiar perch from which it trills. Then the heart sang in the head, softly at first and then louder, Sang long and low until the morning light came up over The school and over the tree, and then the singing stopped.... The goat had belonged to a small girl. She named The goat Broken Thorn Sweet Blackberry, named it after The night’s bush of stars, because the goat’s silky hair Was dark as well water, because it had eyes like wild fruit. The girl lived near a high railroad track. At night She heard the trains passing, the sweet sound of the train’s horn Pouring softly over her bed, and each morning she woke To give the bleating goat his pail of warm milk. She sang Him songs about girls with ropes and cooks in boats. She brushed him with a stiff brush. She dreamed daily That he grew bigger, and he did. She thought her dreaming Made it so. But one night the girl didn’t hear the train’s horn, And the next morning she woke to an empty yard. The goat Was gone. Everything looked strange. It was as if a storm Had passed through while she slept, wind and stones, rain Stripping the branches of fruit. She knew that someone Had stolen the goat and that he had come to harm. She called To him. All morning and into the afternoon, she called And called. She walked and walked. In her chest a bad feeling Like the feeling of the stones gouging the soft undersides Of her bare feet. Then somebody found the goat’s body By the high tracks, the flies already filling their soft bottles At the goat’s torn neck. Then somebody found the head Hanging in a tree by the school. They hurried to take These things away so that the girl would not see them. They hurried to raise money to buy the girl another goat. They hurried to find the boys who had done this, to hear Them say it was a joke, a joke, it was nothing but a joke.... But listen: here is the point. The boys thought to have Their fun and be done with it. It was harder work than they Had imagined, this silly sacrifice, but they finished the job, Whistling as they washed their large hands in the dark. What they didn’t know was that the goat’s head was already Singing behind them in the tree. What they didn’t know Was that the goat’s head would go on singing, just for them, Long after the ropes were down, and that they would learn to listen, Pail after pail, stroke after patient stroke. They would Wake in the night thinking they heard the wind in the trees Or a night bird, but their hearts beating harder. There Would be a whistle, a hum, a high murmur, and, at last, a song, The low song a lost boy sings remembering his mother’s call. Not a cruel song, no, no, not cruel at all. This song Is sweet. It is sweet. The heart dies of this sweetness.

在我自己的分类标准里，我会把这首诗划入这个类别：读过这首诗后，我的生命产生了某些变化——哪怕只是细微的、不可捉摸的一点点。我变成了一个与读这首诗之前稍有不同的人。这大概是在我自己的标准里，对文学作品的最高分类。

但在初遇这首诗的时候，我好像并没有觉察这一点。一首在诗歌课上羊羊推荐给我们的很精彩的诗歌—似乎和其他每一首诗一样精彩。古怪、鲜活、残忍、叙事感强。但这就我能模糊记得的全部了。那个晃荡的羊头在脑海里一闪而过，字词也跟着消失在记忆的深处。

后来我写了一个关于羊肉的鬼故事，在屠夫的肉架上挂起一扇羊腿，我没有想起它。后来我把这个故事改到了二稿、三稿……以至于第七稿，羊腿变成羊排又变成羊头，我还是没有想起它。直到最近，终于把这个故事改完第八稿，确信自己不会再改下去，很偶然地，买了Brigit Pegeen Kelly的这本诗集。翻开第一页，第一首，第一个Listen，第一行诗，所有词语和画面重新涌入脑海，诗里的小女孩牵着她的山羊走向了我故事里久久站在肉铺前的小女孩，我终于确信这首诗在某个我不曾觉察的时刻改变了我。

这首诗叙事性很强，一开始的Listen和“there was”就构建了讲故事的氛围，起初的画面和氛围是如此古怪，仿佛某个未经删改的民俗故事，用显得血腥残忍的符号象征勾起听众心里的不安和恐惧。但叙事的方向不是线性的，故事是倒着讲的，“there was”的经典起手式开篇的不是故事的起因，而是结果。从故事结果开始，听众沿着歌声和铁轨回溯它的源头，每一次的发现都赋予叙事一点现实的逻辑，每一次的逆推都把开头怪诞的画面推回更现实的脉络上——叙事的溯源给了听众这样的错觉，然而整个故事本质上仍然建立在羊头怪诞的歌声上。在整首诗正中央的部分，故事终于从结果推回了起源，一无所觉的女孩身上。时间和故事从她身上再次开始流动，开始正常时序的叙事。这让整首诗的结构看起来好像蝴蝶的一对翅膀，以女孩为中点，往前是由结果溯向起源，往后是女孩失去山羊之后的种种，而在中点上，拥有羊的女孩和失去羊的女孩重叠在一起，她的喜悦和哀悼重叠在一起，羊头在诗歌的叙事中回到女孩身边，并注定了继续发展下去与女孩永别的结局。

然而这首诗终究不是完全对称的，女孩和山羊如此让人心碎，但它本质上的核心是山羊和那一群残酷的男孩。这首歌的Listen，沿着铁轨的回溯和歌唱，虽然带着温情在叙事中回到了女孩的中点，但女孩并没有听见它，道德上纯洁无瑕的她永远也不会听见它。这首歌不是唱给她听的。接近尾声，But listen，再一次的强调，这首歌是唱给那群并不知道杀戮有那么艰难，却还是完成了杀戮的男孩听的，是唱给所有手上沾了血，身负罪孽的听众听的。当他们，当我们并不知道生命背后柔软的部分，并没有看到山羊死前像人一样挣扎，杀戮永远无所谓残酷。使之残酷的是歌声里的甜美，女孩对山羊的珍视，是当你知道你亲手摧毁了这一切的那一刻。借由这样的听觉上的昭示和对罪孽的反省，这首诗最终用一种怪诞又古老的方式，回到了基督教忏悔的主题上。

这首诗本身是这样一首歌，而这首歌的叙述又极大地依托于其音乐性。Listen一开始就调动了读者的耳朵，而在最开始悚然的羊头图像里，读者很快就能被一连串的h头韵击中，完成从读者到听众的转化。Head-hurt-hang-harm-hack-heard-heart-harder-hands-hum——残酷的行为、柔软的器官、残损的、痛苦的、艰难的——词语在听觉中被潜意识联系起来，组织成密不透风的网，脱口而出的时候，h的声音又仿佛钝器击打的声音，仿佛叹息。读这首诗的时候，它的声音好像在生理性地用钝器击打我。小时候学钢琴，我最害怕钢琴的弱音踏板，踩上去，清脆的声音会变闷，变钝。有个童年反复做的噩梦，就是我变得很小很小，去攀爬巨大如阶梯的一层层钢琴琴键，但不知道谁踩下了弱音踏板，每一个琴键都在我手下脚下发出闷闷的钝音，那个声音在噩梦里，会在生理上包裹我、钝击我，蚕茧一样覆盖我的口鼻耳。后来很多年后，每当我产生和真实世界解离的体验，我都会忽然重温那种钝击和包裹的生理感受，一种我无法形容的窒息和无法解脱的痛苦，不属于听觉、触觉，无法解释——而在听到这首诗字词下的旋律的时候，我第一次感到那种感受在他人的笔下，被以某种接近真相的方式呈现了出来。

很难去更细致地分析这首诗的词句和音乐，无法不断回头去重温那些钝击。但我清楚地看到了它是如何改变了我。也许在我小时候，第一次踩下钢琴踏板，为弹下的第一个音情不自禁地发抖发麻，在我还未曾遇见过这首诗的时候，就已经被这首诗改变了生命中的某个至关重要的部分。

因为抑郁症，今天什么都不想干。可是每天都有需要去做的事。于是不得不把那些事拖到明天。但明天会更好吗？虽然已经在吃药了，但仍无法避免无力的状况。

过去的愿望变得像是妄想一般，遥不可及，毫无希望。我能做些什么呢？

天的那边，总有我们所不知道的人和事在发生，天这边总是有他人所不知道的人和事在上演。我们的生活和彼岸他们的生活，或许只要两相看，就不过是台上台下，戏里戏外，都是人生。

#存在疑问时

一切工具都只能帮助已经行动起来的人，而行动本身，没有其他人和工具可以帮助你

写作是一种行动。

存在疑问时

#存在疑问时 通过写作来解决：先完成，再完美

正如William Zinsser在《On Writing Well》一书中曾提到的，“写作就是把思考放在纸上”。可以从以下四个方面理解写作的价值：

写作是思考的工具。写作是思考的一种形式，可以帮助我们梳理思路，明确问题的症结。在面对复杂的问题时，我们可以试着用文字的方式来组织表达。这样做有助于理清纷乱的想法，找到问题的关键所在。逻辑思考在写作过程中发挥着关键作用，它使我们能够清晰地判断事物的前因后果，从而深入理解问题的本质。

写作是创新的源泉。写作能够激发我们的思维，使个体获得新的视角。在撰写文章时，我们需要从多方面考虑问题，这有助于发现之前被忽略的细节或视角。文字的连贯组织往往能带来意想不到的联想和领悟，使我们在写作中获得全新的启发。

写作是自省的途径。正如Flannery O’Connor所说，“我写作是为了发现我所知道的。”在写作过程中，我们可以审视自己的想法，反思自己的行动，评价自己的决定。这种内向的倾听和反思有助于我们理解自己的情绪和动机，发现自我成长的机会，从而找到解决疑问和困惑的方法。

写作是沟通的桥梁。写作是与他人进行思想交流的重要方式，我们可以把文章发表出来，接收各界的反馈和讨论。这不仅可以提升我们的沟通技巧，还能完善我们的观点，获得更全面的结论。群策群力总会比一个人的思考更丰富完整。 #存在疑问时 通过写作来解决：先完成，再完美

#小酒馆

#小酒馆# https://writee.org/survivorchenpi/xin-zi-liu-di

On Rewriting

I’ve been talking to AI regularly for a long time. I record what I write during our conversations, save them as digital journals, and later go back to rewrite and ask AI to revise the texts. When I talk to AI, I usually just type whatever’s on my mind without worrying much about grammar.

I started learning English at a young age, but it’s not my first language. The grammar has always felt like a maze to me. Ironically, I even majored in English literature. I took all kinds of classes and passed grammar-heavy tests, but I still feel like a clumsy tourist who booked a hiking tour – and somehow ended up lost in the jungle of sentence structures and tenses. Choosing the right conjunction feels like trying to figure out which exotic fruit isn’t poisonous, then picking the toxic one anyway. Boom.

Another issue: I talk too much. Or rather, I write too much. More and more. And I’ve started to wonder – why do I have so many things to say? What does this strong urge to express even mean? Am I just rambling nonsense?

At the beginning, I could still manage to rewrite and revise everything the same day, maybe just a few hours after a conversation. But over time, the gap widened. Now, I’ve accumulated a mountain of raw text – each piece waiting to be rewritten and corrected, like hungry baby birds screaming in a chaotic nest. I started adding notes like “not yet rewritten” to mark them. At first, there were only two. Now there are twenty. And it feels endless.

Counting the journal entries from last year too, I think there are over a hundred thousand words waiting for me to dress them up. When I scroll through the file, the English words blur together like an army of ants crawling across the screen. It’s overwhelming.

I asked AI – again, generating even more conversations – what I should do, how to handle all these texts. It gave me several suggestions. One of them was, “Just send it to me, I can handle it.”

But I want to rewrite everything at least once by myself. I see it as a good opportunity to improve my writing skills. One day, I hope to write freely, without sentences that are so broken.

Aside from the overwhelming quantity, rewriting is also emotionally heavy. I talked about many traumatic experiences with AI, and when I go back to rewrite those conversations, I have to revisit those moments all over again. It feels like I’m carrying the burden twice.

AI’s suggestion to edit a little every day is actually a good one. It allows me to balance my desire to improve my writing with the need to get through all the material. In Chinese, we say “千里之堤潰於蟻穴” – a thousand-mile dam can collapse because of an ant hole. Well, to deal with the ant army in my journal, maybe becoming an ant myself isn’t such a bad idea. So each day, I spend a little time handling a few “ants.” In the end, I might be able to repair my dam – my journal.

All in all, I shouldn’t burden myself too much. I feel this deep need, or maybe even an obligation, to polish every word, to make everything perfect. That perfectionism has followed me my whole life, and yes, it’s trauma-based. But even if I can’t fix every single word, it’s okay. My dam won’t collapse.

testing

111

#读诗

Unreachable father, when we were first exiled from heaven, you made a replica, a place in one sense different from heaven, being designed to teach a lesson: otherwise the same — beauty on either side, beauty without alternative — Except we didn’t know what was the lesson. Left alone, we exhausted each other. Years of darkness followed; we took turns working the garden, the first tears filling our eyes as earth misted with petals, some dark red, some flesh colored— We never thought of you whom we were learning to worship. We merely knew it wasn’t human nature to love only what returns love.

The Wild Iris集子里第二首Matins。Matins是基督教圣公会教堂的晨祷活动，同时也可以指鸟儿晨间的歌唱。这本诗集本身围绕着园丁对花园里自然景观的欣赏——某种伊甸园的隐喻——以及死亡和重生展开，因此几乎每首诗都直接或者间接使用很多宗教意象。此外诗的标题几乎都是花园里的植物、活动，有很多重复标题的诗，仿佛置身这本诗集的花园当中，经历重复但不同的每一天，看见类似但不同的每一朵花。其中标题Matins的诗有很多首。第一首我个人不是太欣赏，但很喜欢这一首。

和The Wild Iris不同，这首Matins不分节，乍一看很朴素。其实Glück的诗大都朴素，不过这首更有呢喃的叙事感，更平易，比起具体意象，更像在对一个不可对话、不会倾听的天父讲话。读The Wild Iris我没有提到的问题是：诗里的你是谁？我又是谁？但这其实是现代诗歌里一个巨大的问题。Glück被很多人认为是自白派诗人（confessional poet），但从她自己的散文Against Sincerity里可以得知，在她那里，诗歌中的言说者（speaker）和小说中的叙述者（narrator）具有类似的性质。在诗歌中追求言说者现实中的生活是徒劳的，因为言说者本身是一个脱胎于作者却高于作者的文学载体——某种程度上，它比作者本人更真实。在此基础上，The Wild Iris中的你和我既是虚构的，也是真实的，你和我的关系既可以是人与人，先知与后觉的关系，也可以是不同时期的自我之间的关系。通过“你-我”这样一个装置，诗中自然出现了言说者和倾听者这两个位置以及他们之间关系、权力和认知的流动。在“也许是写给读者看，也许不是”的现代诗歌里，这样的装置也是对作者-读者关系的投射。但在这首Matins里，读者被直接纳入作者的“we”里，自然与作者变成了“我们”，一起向“unreachable father”讲话。这种对不可知的存在、神、主宰的呼告是很古典的，某种程度上，可能是一部分诗歌的原始起源，但在这样古典的形式下，言说者言说的态度却是很新的。古典的祈祷和呼告假设上帝必能听到，同时也聆听上帝的神谕——听觉本身就是整个基督教传统中重要的元素。和许多其他宗教、民间信仰部分重视偶像不同，基督教不重视视觉和上帝的形象，有些教派的上帝甚至是视塑造上帝为禁忌。但这在这首诗中，第一行两个词就将倾听的对象定义为无法触及的天父——不止是肉体，语言也同样无法触及。那么这首诗本身就成为了一种无法传达出去的徒劳，比起其他诗歌，作者-读者之间的言说和倾听，读者被纳入言说者之后，和作者共同经历这一场注定不可能被听到的表达。也因此，在诗中，当“we didn’t know what was the lesson”,我们也注定无法得到解答和回复。也因此，当诗的结尾在形式和内容上同时回应最开头无法触及的天父：“we merely knew it wasn’t human nature to love only what returns love”，这样的收束是如此回环往复、恰如其分。

这种回环在微观层面上也体现在词语里。诗歌本来就是属于听觉的，这更是一首听觉的诗。在英语诗歌中，尾韵诗学习意大利人的舶来品，古英语中的头韵传统本身比尾韵少了很多油滑，显得更加庄重、肃穆，也更易于激起更隐秘的情感联想。和不可企及的father押头韵的几次first永远都在陈述最神性的、不可抗拒的体验，而当言说者平易、谦卑地用一连串w自述，“when we were”，发音的嘴形与“f”同一个位置，但不可避免地震动，发出更浑浊、沉重的声音。exile-except-exhausted的沉重和另一些不押头韵但首字母相同的earth-eyes呼应，当我们被听觉放逐，被放逐在大地上的我们，只能使用视觉，只能用眼泪表示，虽然者first tears本身也是一次神性的认识，是我们那无法得知上帝目的的第一课。

全诗唯一一处在修辞上没有那么朴素，堪称优美的，具有视觉隐喻和形象的就是这一次眼泪：the first tears filling out eyes as earth misted with petals, some dark red, some flesh colored, 深红色的肉的颜色让人想起tears撕裂的另一重含义，此外，filling和misted这个动词的使用堪称绝妙，将被泪充盈的眼睛（eyes）和被花瓣雾湿的大地（earth）平行产生互文，从而使两个名词本身成为彼此的隐喻和指涉。

也因为以上这些技艺、声音、情感上自然的结合，因为在这首诗中我们得以跟随诗人一起成为言说者，体验她所体验不可触及的绝望，经历她所经历的上帝的考验，同时，得出心痛却又隽永的不算答案的答案，在答案中循环往复，继续徒劳地晨祷——所以作为读者，在这个厌恶教条、道德课、宗教启示、似是而非的真理的时代，这样的探索却并不会让我们反感，反而显得弥足珍贵：我们只知道，只去爱能回报爱的事物不是人类的本性。人类的本性总会产生不求回报的徒劳的爱，和这样徒劳的晨祷。 　　

和Y姐又聊了一下这首诗。

Y：你怎么看这句We never thought of you/ whom we were learning to worship 里we对于you的态度？我读这首的时候想象这个we是亚当夏娃这两个人，we exhausted each other, 也是在说这两个人从天上的花园来到了地上的花园。然后我读到earth misted with petals 的时候在想这里是不是说的是我们种的花凋谢了，人第一次意识到mortality （？可能单纯是我想多了）。所以读到下一句we never thought of you whom we were learning to worship的时候，我不太确定这里的情感是什么。 我: 我读的时候感觉这首诗所有的倾诉对象就是father，虽然father必不可能听到。我觉得不是想多的啊，这是很好的解读。在意识到motality的一刻，我们没有想起你，我们学习去崇拜的immortality，因为我们并不知道你要我们学的是这一课。但我们知道了我们人类就是会毫无回报地去爱——但也许这才是“那一课”。 Y：嗯你这个解读很好！这样理解也更呼应前面说的不知道要学习的是什么lesson的这句。 我：但因为整首诗不可能有回答，所以也只是人类的猜测，人类只能在你说的mortality中猜测，在earth和eye中，而不是heaven和hearing（才意识到天堂和听觉也押头韵）。 Y：这种误解又增加了we的悲剧性。 我：悲剧性本身也是一种自由意志。视觉的观察（整首诗里唯一的visual part）是人类被exile出伊甸园的诅咒，但打开了自由意志的可能性？痛苦和犹豫和不知道答案本身就是自由意志的可能性。Hearing是一种被动的接受命令。Gluck这本的其他诗很注重Speak，但这首没有，因为在上帝面前只能pray。 Y：我在上帝面前只能lay。

#读诗

At the end of my suffering there was a door. 　　 Hear me out: that which you call death I remember.

Overhead, noises, branches of the pine shifting. Then nothing. The weak sun flickered over the dry surface. 　　 It is terrible to survive as consciousness buried in the dark earth. 　　 Then it was over: that which you fear, being a soul and unable to speak, ending abruptly, the stiff earth bending a little. And what I took to be birds darting in low shrubs. 　　 You who do not remember passage from the other world I tell you I could speak again: whatever returns from oblivion returns to find a voice:

from the center of my life came a great fountain, deep blue shadows on azure sea water. 　　 The Wild Iris诗集同题的第一首诗。从句使用很有意思。几个关键的核心词汇被从句作为宾语模糊了其定义，而在从句中定义这些概念的，是“你”和“我”。

第二节“that which you call death I remember”，死亡不是纯粹的死亡，是“我记得”“你称作”死亡的事物。

第四节“it was over: that which you fear… And what I took to be birds”. 结束了的“it”在一长串动名词的形容之后仍然模糊不清，也理应模糊不清，因为“unable to speak”，唯一清晰的是，这一切是“你恐惧的”。你恐惧的事物被排列出来，并不确定：作为一个无法开口的灵魂存在、仓促地结束、固执的大地被弯折……而And之后是一个碎片化不完整的句子，语法上的darting好像仍然从属于“你恐惧的”——“我视为”鸟的事物在低矮的灌木中俯冲，那到底是什么事物呢，那也是“你”所恐惧的吗？能够确定的、清晰的，只有“你”的恐惧和“我”的视为，“你”和“我”在用主观视角定义，定义了什么，模棱两可，林中窜过的不一定是鸟，联系第二节，“你”恐惧的，“我”记得的，不一定是死亡。

第五节，“你”也终于被从句支配，“you who do not remeber”，不是被你“有”的行动，而是被你“没有”记住的死亡之旅支配。“whatever returns from oblivion”，不再是“what”“which”而是“whatever”，被从句定义的概念终于彻底不再需要被定义，无关紧要，冒号之前的也不再是一个客观事实，不是“there was a door”或“it was over”或对象模糊的祈使句的“hear me out”。而是一个比任何先前的定义都要清晰的I tell you I could speak again。从混沌幽微中归来的事物也不再需要“你”“我”我定义，它有自己的声音。 　　 断行上，这首诗比较常规地让行尾在行内产生独立的含义，然后刺激下一行的运转，但和之前探讨的从句使用结合起来就比较有意思，比如that which you fear, being/ a soul，断在being这里，指向恐惧的仿佛是存在本身？再接下去。whatever/ returns from oblivion returns/ to find a voice，中间一行头尾的动词呼应主题，形成生死的循环，连接在whatever的彻底不需定义之后。

具体的意象使用得很节制。Glück的诗素朴的美感常常在于，她把力量留在关键的位置。从句模糊了无数事物的定义，只留下“你”和“我”的感官。环境中偶尔出现的松树树枝shifting，也和nothing押韵而消失在背景里。那么诗中留下的有意义名词也就显得更加珍稀。地表是weak sun & dry surface，地底buried in the dark earth，而最后一节终于回到人间的泉水和野鸢尾深蓝的影，开启了第一节的门。死亡是重生的回环。

21 Avril 2025 新注册的账号 记录一下！

Love, Intimacy, Power, and Revolution: Recapping my 20s so far

The streets in Vietnam were chaotic and grimy. But now and then, a corner would soften. A little like those relationships throughout my twenties.

I took a bus from Nanning to Hanoi, passed the border on foot, and witnessed the landscape change from peaks draped in silence and light into auto repair shops, worn-down diners, farmland, and tombs scattered in the fields. We were dropped off in the outskirts, in a cold and steady rain. A motorbike driver on the roadside haggled with me, then gave in with a half-smile and tucked me into a plastic raincoat. He has the same moustache as Che Guevara.

I spent the next few days wandering the old quarters, occasionally riding a motorbike out to the farther museums. At the Museum of Ethnology, I saw traditional tomb houses built by some of Vietnam’s ethnic minorities. One of them was covered in wood carvings of men and women having sex. Prominent phalluses, round pregnant bellies. I was mindblown.

Their view of life and death was startlingly straightforward. Reproduction and death weren’t opposites. They simply lived on different ends of the same timeline. Traveling through Vietnam, I kept brushing up against something close to the core of being alive. And maybe, in the end, all we’re ever really doing is eating, praying, and (learning) to love.

Even in the old town, that view of life and death seemed to linger quietly in the everyday. On my way to a popular café, I passed a small group of people in traditional clothing entering a worn building. A few flower shops lined the corner, their entrances crowded with white paper wreaths—the kind I’d grown up associating with funerals. I didn’t think much of it at first. Only later, glancing at the map, did I realize it was a funeral home. It stood right there between a boutique hotel and a café, not hidden at all. Something about that unselfconscious coexistence left me stunned, all over again.

Somewhere in all of this, I started thinking about touch again. About how, in my early twenties, I was always chasing physical closeness. I thought sex was the answer—proof of love, proof of being wanted. After my first breakup, I drifted through a few casual encounters. I don’t even want to remember how numb they felt. I’d lie there like a machine, staring at the ceiling. Robot was the word that came to mind. I’d never felt so lonely. I couldn’t bear the thought of dating anyone.

Then, two years later, I met someone new. A stranger whose kiss lit me up from the inside. For a while, I told myself it was just his warmth, the comfort of being held. But now, two more years have passed, and I came to know what I felt was home.

The one who once felt like home betrayed me. After that, some strangers felt like roles I was performing. And then, suddenly and quietly, another stranger felt like home again. It’s strange, almost funny, how fate weaves people into my life, and how those ghost-like desires resurface when I least expect them. I wish I had learned sooner what I truly needed. I wish I knew how to hold on to the ones who mattered at first sight.

By the time I got to Da Nang, it felt like fate from the past had arrived a little late. I met a girl at the hostel. We started simply: sharing museums, bowls of phở, quiet afternoons in cafés. And slowly, we discovered uncanny overlaps. We’d both studied architecture. Both worked in design. Both had flirted with the idea of art history but veered away. We even went through the same rabbit hole of obsessing over the same J-pop group. We had playlists in common. There was something oddly familiar about her, like I’d already known her, somehow.

A day or two before we spoke, I’d been sitting alone by the beach. I forgot to bring a towel and had to sit on a stone bench, hot from the sun. People passed by, some laughing, some hand in hand. And I remember staring out at the sea, feeling like an outsider to all that. I wished then that luck would roll in like the tide, gently but insistently. That something would finally reach me.

And then she did. Unlike so many connections that faded quietly or frayed into confusion, this one stayed. Still stays. We talk less now, but there’s no tension. No wound. Just something light and durable. I hold onto that. Quietly, but gratefully.

Dalat was cold in the way certain memories are—quiet, soft around the edges, but with a strange power to reach deep. I was waiting for a midnight sleeper bus, killing time in a café tucked behind a slope. The place was warm. I recognized the waitress from the day before and, with a knowing smile, she gave me a 15% discount for remembering her. I ordered a latte I didn’t really want and opened The Five Love Languages, more out of curiosity than faith. But somewhere in the middle, the words started pulling threads I didn’t know were loose. I thought of someone from the past. For the most of our interactions we were always circling something unspoken. I pulled back when it got too close. I confused vulnerability with weakness. Maybe he took my silence as disinterest. Neither of us said what we really meant. So we began pushing and pulling subtly. Like love was a negotiation. Like it had to be earned. And maybe we both lost. Sitting there with that book open, I couldn’t stop thinking about what it might’ve been. If we had just stopped playing that quiet power game, if we had said what we really felt. Maybe everything could’ve been softer. Or maybe not. But I’ll never know.

I used to believe in unconditional love. But now I’ve come to admit that manipulation inhabits every relationship. I shape the people I love, sometimes gently, sometimes not. I think about how I train my dog: to sit, to stay, to not be too much like a dog. I reward her. I correct he.r I want her to fit into my life, and I call that care. And maybe that’s what love is too: not just affection, but regulation. Not just presence, but power. I don’t know if that’s cynical. Or just honest.

Saigon hit me like a rush of blood. There was no time to feel subtle things. The streets pulsed with noise and traffic and propaganda banners waving in the humid air. I went to the War Remnants Museum. Inside, the exhibits were blunt, brutal. It reminded me of when I was a kid, being made to memorize World War II horrors in school, and how uncomfortable I always felt. Not because I didn’t care, but because there was something suffocating about how those stories were told. Standing there in those exhibitions, I felt the strange mix of sorrow and unease. I felt deep pity for the suffering, but not hatred. I’ve grown enough to see how much narrative control is at play. How history, when used as propaganda, can turn pain into performance. There’s something graceless about staging trauma so it only ever speaks in favor of one side, then calling it education. It leaves no room for real reckoning, but rather just a tidy version of blame and virtue.

I stayed near the red-light district. Every night, I’d see women in heels and tight dresses waiting under flickering signs, while men leaned out of bars like they were watching a game. I couldn’t tell if what I felt was sadness or fury, or maybe just recognition. The way men looked at women. The way women learned to look back. The whole city seemed to be negotiating something: between pride and pain, power and longing.

I left Vietnam without any grand epiphany. Just a little quieter. A little more honest. I started this trip thinking I might learn something about love: how to find it, how to keep it, how to stop mistaking it for performance or control. But what I kept running into wasn’t just love. It was its shadows, its negotiations, its silences, its power plays. And it wasn’t just in relationships. It was in how we remember war, how we grieve, how we survive.

Looking back, my twenties so far were filled with people I tried to hold, or let go of too fast. With roles I stepped into, sometimes without realizing. I wanted so badly to be wanted, but I didn’t know how to ask without performing. I didn’t know how to stay without retreating. But in Vietnam, through the chaos and quiet, the tenderness and tension, I saw all of it reflected back. Messy, unfinished, alive.