I only realized recently that I am over halfway to forty.
I don’t drink, but I could go to a bar
and get wasted if I really wanted to,
tongue swimming in that sharp, acrid taste,
mind sluggish, drowning in thoughts
not of where I will be in nineteen years, but of what there will be left,
my mind plunging shipwreck-heavy to the ocean floor.
.
I was sixteen: it’s lockdown
and my aunt dies
and I tell my parents
that the world might end before I turn thirty.
My mom hears about ocean levels rising and imagines
our house underwater.
She comes from an island, but never learned to swim,
so she imagines herself drowning.
.
The other day, I sat in the dining hall,
spoon dipped in a dark pool of French onion soup,
reading an article about new eugenics and designer babies
and AI company execs dancing on party yachts as the world burns down.
The soup, pungent and salty,
a murky ocean crashing through my door.
.
When I was a kid:
my aunt makes niu rou mian,
beef and stewed carrots and daikon and suan cai
floating in a light clear broth
dotted with scallions from her backyard garden,
noodles snaking around the soft little islands of flavor.
“Long noodle, long life,” she says, singsong.
My dad makes his own version for many of my birthdays:
heartier, with marinated eggs instead of carrots.
No matter what, I slurp up the noodles every time,
closing my mouth gently to avoid cutting them short.
.
On my fortieth birthday,
I hope that together, we aren’t completely drowning
in the murkiness,
that there is still a long life ahead of me
and I still wake up to birdsong
and the fish still swim
and people still make soup for the people they love.