auspicious suantou/蒜头 nose, pressed wide-flat by a god’s thumbs and then pinched

tall-together by fifth-grade me. (her nose only pinkens from the pressure.) 

brows shaved by my mama/妈妈: she tilts my chin upwards with one hand,

the other tracing reminders into stretched-taut skin: you must be 

contained and classy, so clip your strays until abnormalities wash away like these

shaved hairs. see how beautiful you are? go clean your face. so i scrubbed, tried to

sand away the sun’s kisses until i was 

daikon-white (eat for good skin). my face, bleeding as i weeded out raised pimples

with fingernail rakes. 

even if a surgeon’s knife carved epicanthal folds into my upper eyelids, i thought i

would still be ugly: just a 

fraudulent doll stumbling toward the traits another girl never had to pay for: she,

not me, never needed to chase beauty like river 

goldfish flopping towards fisherman’s hooks. i wished i were her, easier on the 

contact lens-compressed eyes (but i wear glasses), free from 

hyperpigmented blemishes — like sprinkled grime over lychee flesh. 

i wanted to thread needles through my pores until i could side-stitch xuebai/雪白

beauty over my own face. was that possible? 

juvenile me’s decree was that all your friends are prettier. so smother Shiseido foundation

180 over your choked skin to hide the red. but wasn’t red your favorite color?

juvenile me was seriously thinking of using 

knives to saw out a version of herself that a boy (unnamed) might call pretty. but

today, i protest against this girl, for why should i live in a 

loveless relationship with my face — the hallmark of a body sculpted for nine, 

sleepless months by her

mama/妈妈? and when this mama tilts my chin back to gaze straight into my soul,

she softens, for this body belongs to a girl she loves unconditionally, and her

gaze never questions: double eyelids? yes or 

no, or tall, perfect nose? (the one you can’t even mold despite hours of nose-slimming

exercises.) yes or no? i mourn for myself, for the ten-year-old girl who 

opted for glasses instead of contact lenses because she thought they’d compress her

puffy cheeks, the girl who 

pressed her foundation-lathered palms together and prayed for a face she could

live with and love, the girl who 

questioned God, day after day, searching for beauty with a too-clear camera (its

lens was clouded so she snapshotted 

reasons to hate herself instead). from her i learned that 

serendipity is when i stop 

taking my selfies and measuring them against the silver-screen celebrities’

portraits, is when i learn that 

until i can vow i love you to every

version of myself, i’ll suffer the pain of deeming myself never 

white enough, never slim enough, and most importantly, never satisfied enough to face

my parents and their own suantou/蒜头 noses, single-folded eyelids, and

tanned skin with a genuine 

xiexie/谢谢, thank you for this holy vessel — for this mind that floats down yonder by

the 

Yellow River; for this heart that births abecedarians; and for this soul that belts

C-pop ballads until the karaoke machine fades to sound level 

zero.