Drink More Water & Other Ways to Say I Love You
my parents didn’t start telling me that they Loved me until I left for college a foreign place where the scent of pho could not kiss my senses and where the steam of my mother’s fried rice could not embrace me, they figured these three words could keep me warm until reunion in third grade, a picture book told me Love is ‘I Love you’. It is hugs kisses flowers crafting gifts It told me that my family must not be loving enough. my parents did not hug me much as a child. they just worked until their hands went numb. they just woke up earlier than the sun to prepare the day’s meals…every day,
Artwork by Alisha Poonawala
6| Dopamine • July’19
