‘Self-Portrait as So Much Potential’
— Joyce Chong
Realizing I hate the word ‘sip.’
But that’s all I do.
I drink. So slowly.
& say I’m tasting it. When I’m just bad at taking in liquid.
The distance between what you had imagined yourself to be and who you are comes to a tangled crossroads in this poem by Chen Chen. Weaving in the struggles of maneuvering distinctly Asian American expectations with the desire to be more, to become more. This poem is an exercise in taking inventory, not in reinvention or transformation, but in existing in a single moment. In being certain of your edges, your own ever-shifting boundaries, and all the places you could go. Will go.
Self-portrait as a still life with fruit. Self-portrait as image out of frame, as all the bright, wide things we will do one day.