If I Had Your Face

by Frances Cha

I wanted to reach over and shake her by the shoulders. Stop running around like a fool, I wanted to say. You have so much and you can do anything you want. I would live your life so much better than you, if I had your face.

Most people have no capacity for comprehending true darkness, and then they try to fix it anyway.

In a way, I will be glad when we are almost home and the scenery will turn into rice fields and farm plots, and I will be reminded of how far I have come, instead of what I cannot reach.

I AM GLAD, then, that I will never love someone again in this way. I would not survive a second time.

the best art comes from an unbearable life—if you live through it, that is.

For my mother, who taught me how to hold on to a dream