Thi, don’t be afraid. Just breathe in. Breathe out. Be still. Listen. 

It’s most calm at night between the deep hum of a low flying airplane and the steady soft snores of your next door neighbor. 

As the four walls of your tiny studio reverberates Time’s breath, you notice how transient life really is with every exhale. 

It’s not cold in 80 degree LA weather, but you wish to see your breath, as if it’s the only indicator of a life worth continuing. 

A 5 year old kid leans his soft hair and warm head against your hand as he struggles with personal space and sharing. 

An old couple walks ahead of you as fast as they can but they wobble. 

And you wonder where you fit. 

To fit in the crook of your father’s arm as a toddler on that discolored white carpeted couch or to kiss your mom good night on a cheek full of dark brown freckles from years of Sai Gon’s hot sun, you notice now that both parents have wrinkles abound as Time surrounds and suffocates all. 

With no discernment. 

Hands clasp praying for some reprieve. 

Not. 

More like clumsy hands trying to grab Time down for control. 

No. 

To hold on, to wait for you as you hope to make some kind of impact to Time. 

To beg. 

Yes. 

Maybe to impress, maybe to stand out, so that instead of Time suppressing you down, Thi, you rise and live on beyond it into legacy. 

*** 

And then you look into the mirror, and you see a ghost in the roots of your hair, as it turned white overnight.

From the opening lines of “Someday I’ll Love Ocean Vuong,” I was instantly inspired. The lines spilled out of Ocean’s soothing voice as he did a live reading, “Ocean, don’t be afraid. The end of the road is so far ahead it is already behind us.” 

I’ve always had a fascination with time but I had always viewed it as linear. When I heard from Ocean “that the road is so far ahead, it is already behind us,” that opened my mind to the possibility that time is circular, that time is really our lives and our ancestors’ lives overlapped together. I am everyone in my family who came before me and Ocean’s poem was proof of that. But his poem showed how he is an extension of his family, and so I wanted to do one of my own. 

At the time when I wrote my version of Ocean’s poem, “Someday I’ll Love Thi Nguyen,” I was about to confront 30. I was very resistant to the looming age and in a way, I contemplated controlling time in my poem, demanding, pleading, begging it to stop so that I may never be 30. But as time has overtaken my parents, my ancestors, who am I to stop it? Instead, with a resigned acceptance and almost out of familial duty, I move forward to define my name, and my family’s name, into legacy.