i wish.

I wrote this piece when I felt I reached my creative peak. In retrospect, I want this post cemented into my blog and brain as a reminder not to give up on my wish to write a memoir one day. Perhaps I’ll title it: two minds that don’t think (nor write) alike. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this gem written circa February 2020:

I wish my parents told me
 of all their financial instability 
before I started pursuing my college degree.

—

I wish my parents told me
 that the intermittent hundred dollar deposits into my bank account were not within budget, because my teenage brain could barely mutter a thank you. Instead, my brain buried its gratitude under towers of textbooks, thinking that the only way I could ever afford to repay hundreds would be by investing them into each exam. 

_ 

I wish my parents told me 
that each time I swiped the credit card in their name I selfishly shifted any zeros that were barely even left, to the left, until all that was left was just, zero. And with each swipe, I slashed away time not knowing we didn’t have a dime to our name. How foolish was I to assume retirement as a human right.


–


I wish my parents told me
 that funding a flight to “family weekend” was a plight suffered, yet somehow paid. 
And maybe, just maybe, their daughter’s education from an institution as renowned as Yale would one day actually afford them bail from the burden reflected on their bank statements.


—


I wish my parents told me to use my two cents in determining who I was standing next to on campus. 
I wish I didn’t allow them to send me even just two cents because it made zero sense to keep stringing along this false sense of reality when I failed to recognize that legacy so often correlates with popularity and presents opportunity so insurmountable it’s actually foreign to my ancestors’ vocabulary. And maybe it was just the jealousy in me that refused to admit my 1stGen identity. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s the institution’s responsibility to admit to the inherent inequity that was so felt by my family.


–


I wish my parents told me
 that money is no longer taboo.
 That I no longer had to worry about generating revenue. 
That we could press “redo.” Together. 
So we could hold conversations beyond the topic of weather.
 So I could feel family in my heart forever.


Hurricane.


–


Dad, I wish I could tell you 
that I want to take the cane that’s been your necessary sidekick for years and kick it into the water where the waves would wash away the stroke you didn’t ask for. I would then teach you the butterfly stroke, because I know if you could have any superpower it would be to fly, if you could only regain freedom to flap your wings again.


Paralyzed.


–


Mom, I wish I could tell you
 that your work ethic is something I idolized.
 That the millions of houses that your bare hands tirelessly cleaned my entire life are now all entirely spotless forever. So please don’t stress anymore. Because if I could somehow take the gay in me to win us the lottery, I know how happy we could be. And you could finally, finally, just relax.


Jackpot.


–


Mom and dad, I wish I could tell you
 that I’m thankful for everything you taught.
 That I’m indebted to the depths of your sacrifices that sought a better life for your kids.
 That I really do love you even when it’s a struggle to say aloud. 
And maybe, just maybe, one day we could all just be one again.


Family.