so i’m supposed to be writing a poem

By Joy Jia

so I’m supposed to be writing a poem.

I’m supposed to be writing a poem

but what I’m actually doing is putting italics on words to pad out the line count, because that’s what I’m really good at, at the end of the day. Padding things out, I mean. Scraping by. Making things look good, making this document look like a poem despite the fact that it is vapid, empty, full of.

well.

nothing. 

keeping appearances. 

My mom calls it saving face. 

Yes, I’ve always been good at saving face.

My parents and their parents and all their parents before them have always been, their army service or my mom’s Peking University or my maybe Princeton at 16, all plastered up in the sweltering Beijing heat on tiny puke-green walls with the ugly paint chipping off (to reveal a much nicer white, might I add) with little pins that look like flowers. 

And I come back to the U.S. sometimes (most of the time, but I don’t want to admit that. I’m an American, just like everyone else, which means I should be at my red-locker, white-tile, football-teamed high school gossipping about things that would lose me face but I should actually be writing a poem right now. And that doesn’t seem to make sense)

What the U.S. is 

is just a small Beijing in a big golden coat. 

My walls are plain white here

and we’ve got refrigerator magnets instead of the little red flower pins 

but Florida isn’t any cooler than summertime Beijing and I still sweat when my mom talks to me, when the words “shi de, dui bu qi, wo xia ci zuo hao dian” taste like the same shitty convenience store yogurt both ways.

The mosquito bites still hurt the same, hua lu shui or OFF! sweat-resistant bug repellant.

If I had access to google docs in Beijing (which I do, I have a VPN, one my mom bought so I could study overseas), I would be writing a poem too. 

I should be writing a poem too, to be more precise.

What I’m actually doing is

not 

that. 

But if I were to write a poem, they’d print it out (if I won an award) and stick it up there on the sticky-green walls (or the sleek gray fridge) with the rest of my mother’s diplomas and my seventh-grade certificates (of participation, but if they can’t read English, it’s not my place to teach them)

You are good at writing, not just rambling. I’m glad that you didn’t go down that path in the end and chose to do math instead, because if you (or, I guess, your dad?) decided that you should be writing poetry instead of doing AMC, you’d probably write a better poem than me. One more thing you’re better than me at.

You’ve stayed in Beijing for 4 months before, after all. 

You’ve learned how to better save face. 

We’ve both learned from the best, but you’ve learned better. You’ve always been a better student than me. The second-grade teacher says that you were her favorite, always were, you just listened so well, did everything you’re supposed to. 

I imagine your green walls would look like a garden, rather than my sparsely populated field. 

You’ve stayed in Beijing for 4 months before, but I’m starting to suspect that 

you never actually left. 

Sometimes I check my surroundings too, lick my own fingers to make sure they really taste like OFF!, look at my walls to check that they’re white. 

I’m glad when I find that I’m not back there, 

but I hope that you imagine that I’m writing this from Beijing with my own VPN and hua lu shui and chipping paint, because that would make my work ethic look good and that

I am still writing, even when I’m not supposed to (though, I guess I’m always supposed to be writing).

But then again, I guess, even now I am writing 

writing something i’m not supposed to be writing

writing,

writing,

writing.

even now, i’m writing something i shouldn’t be writing, something that wouldn’t go up on that wall

something that is not

a

poem.

Joy Jia (they/them) is a poet, short story, essay, and fanfiction rambler (because they hesitate to call themselves a writer) from Sarasota, Florida. They hate mosquitos and the heat and humidity but love the rain and the idea of living in a vacation destination so living in Florida is pretty okay. Their work has been recognized by the John Locke Institute and strangers on the internet, with a focus on fictional characters, the earth Asia experience, growing up and the expectations that come with it, duck blood soup, YouTube movies, computer science, and everything in between.