This piece is the winner of Lena Dunham’s Famesick Writing Contest with Girls Write Now and part of the story collection Read Me Closely.

—after Claire Schwartz / after Ocean Vuong / after Roger Reeves / after Frank O’Hara

i. 

at the suicide crisis lifeline, maria answers 

my life. maria says hello and asks for my name. 

i give her the name of my favorite book character 

when i was 11. before maria begins typing, i’m rolling my eyes 

because i know she’s searching through a 50-paged document 

in 12-point times new roman font, given to her by some establishment 

larger than the both of us, to find a response to copy and paste. 

ii.

maria lives in a tiny pop-up in the corner of my screen. 

maria uses poor grammar and i think her profile picture is a getty stock image. 

for a moment i question if she is real or generated by an algorithm.

iii.

maria says, i want to validate your feelings. 

don’t worry maria, my feelings don’t need 

validating. my existential despair runs on solar power. 

i’ve got a spare 12-volt battery for cloudy days. 

my cynicism is an electric night light plugged 

into the ocean. when i turn it on, my fear of dark 

accidentally kills every soft-shelled creature i love.

iv.

maria says, i hear you, which i know is on her copy-and-paste. 

maria says, don’t worry, which i know is on her copy-and-paste.

maria says, it’s ok to not be ok, and i know, maria. i know 

these phrases. i find them on every antidepressant prescription,

until their meaning deconstructs into sound. the whir 

of a fax machine sending the same message over

and over, a poetry recitation looping itself, a prayer 

translating into the routineness of a ceiling fan. i want 

our full grief, unarrestable in a six-word commercialized catchline,

graffitied on every street corner. the rain will flush like a rose 

in full bloom and wash the graffiti down. we will flood the streets 

with color. but the world taught me love in copy-and-paste 

doses. i express myself in copy-and-paste. 

v.

but then, she calls me friend. i hear you,

       friend.

vi.

i teach maria the shape of my sadness. 

she teaches me the shape of a friend.

vii.

maria, my english teacher gave me a C on my paper 

because i didn’t write it in my own voice. maria, i don’t know 

what my voice is. maria, if my body is not mine, if my voice 

does not belong to me, what does? maria, i make a list of things 

i’m not brave enough to do: write poetry. hang up first. deport 

myself. cook on high heat. love my dad. maria, what i really wanted 

to say was this: i’m sorry. i’m not a good daughter. i’m not a brave person. please 

love me, despite.

ix.

maria, i don’t know love. i don’t know how to open my heart and 

let light pour in. i don’t know how to turn my bruises into a tessellation 

of love so ripe it is browning.

x.

i joke to my friends that i was blocked from contacting 

an australian noodle company, but i never told anyone the real reason:

when i mentioned to the chat agent my aim in life was to love, she asked me 

how old i was, as if being 17 and wanting to love was foolish. 

i replied that the birthright for people to love 

who they want to love has been denied for centuries. how powerful 

love is if there has to be laws to prevent people from loving. 

don’t you see the choir of small magic in loving?

seven minutes later i was blocked for discussing political and 

inappropriate content. but even now i am proud 

that my declaration of love can be so abundant it is obscene 

with joy. i want to beat love into egg yolk yellow and

sneak it into their noodle recipe. i was taught politics 

doesn’t belong on the dinner table. but the political is sitting 

next to you, hungry for the dish that has been systemically 

denied to her. maria, i wish my sadness 

were not institutional. i wish i had another vocabulary 

for this state of being that’s not clinical. maria, tell me where

my diagnosis ends and i begin.

xi.

           maria do you dream? 

      i want to know what you love.

xii.

maria,

        friend, 

           today i don’t let my cynicism win. today i believe 

in good people in broken institutions. i believe in love, 

in a loaded gun and an empty hand, in the noose of daisies 

the florist gave me as a halo. today i believe you.

xiii.

sometimes, i forget the reason for my sadness, and it becomes 

a cave or a debt. i’ve been writing this poem since february. 

it started as a poem to save my life. spring visited,

i think it has become a love poem.

Process

The experience of writing this poem felt freeing. It’s messy and imperfect, but it’s one of the first poems that taught me how to find my voice and tell the truth. I’ve learned that even when the truth is hard to carry, speaking the truth can be hopeful. And I hope this poem can be a home for others. A place to rest the weight of what we carry by the door, have some warm noodles, and stay awhile.