I Am Not Jessica Chen

by Ann Liang

I wanted him the only way I knew how to want anything—obsessively, fervently.

The funny thing about time is that part of it is always at a standstill, frozen in the back of your mind, waiting to resurface at any given second.

“Not quite there yet, but has potential,” which was what people said as consolation in the absence of true competence. And me learning over time that potential was in itself such an abstract term, tossed around recklessly, that more often than not it simply meant you didn’t live up to the idea somebody else had of you.

I’ve never known how to witness dusk without feeling a dull sense of grief: another day gone, another day lost where I’m still the same.

Would the butterfly be relieved to turn back into a human? Or would the butterfly miss being able to fly too much?

There’s nothing you want more than to want—you’ll obsess over something, and convince yourself that so long as you get it, you’ll be happy, but then once you do, you’re immediately dissatisfied and want something else.”

I don’t know how to be content, to sit with myself and my life and let it wash over me like daylight.

“I would never move on,” Aaron says softly. “I would never take your paintings down.”

When he was around, the world seemed safe, the kind of place that was worth everything, all the little disappointments and injustices and chips at my pride. The kind of place that could be beautiful if we really tried.

I can’t tell when the nothingness begins or ends. But very briefly, in the moments between, there’s color: burning roses and sage, ceruleans and lavender, the soft canary yellow of my childhood, the viridian of the sea, the first flush of dawn.

It’s my life, I think with amazement, and it’s beautiful, and I can paint it any color I want to. Right now it’s drenched in the brightest shade of gold. I have the brush in my hands, and the canvas is mine. It’s all mine.