Jamie Lim

 Jamie Lim is currently an undergraduate student at Johns Hopkins University studying chemical and biomolecular engineering. She aspires to be a physician-scientist and bring hope to patients with chronic diseases. In her free time, she writes poetry, designs houses on The Sims 4, watches African wildlife documentaries, and dreams of bringing home a Doberman puppy one day.

Easy read of the poems in the images above:

One Leg Folded, the Other One Stretched

Inspired by a sculpture titled “Seated Boy as Kui Xing”

Perched on a pristine plinth
was a round wooden boy bathed in gilt and lacquer.
One leg folded, the other one stretched.
One hand clutching a crescent-shaped gold bar, the other one empty.
Fingers hollowed around a brush long-lost
whose broad strokes once painted imperial success
and bestowed wealth upon those huddled on
a moonless stage.
The stars had been out of reach.
Then a stroke of the brush by the right hand
and a curved golden saber by the left would part the dark cotton curtains.
But today his golden fingers are mottled with black,
slowly chipped away by the demands of centuries
and perpetually solidified in an empty embrace.
Still, he carries the weight
of desperate prayers to the Buddhist bodhisattva, Guanyin,
for an ache more potent than the sight of stars:
the birth of a son.

Twenty years ago, a woman with
three brothers and a mother whose heart had long ago sent those
desperate prayers to the Buddhist bodhisattva, Guanyin,
of which three out of four had been answered,
also whispered those same prayers while she sat there.
Perched on the white examination table.
One leg folded, the other one stretched.
One hand clutching her husband’s hand, the other one empty.
Fingers moved restlessly as she wondered whether her womb cradled
an answered prayer
or simply another girl like her.

When she realized it would be the latter,
she was disappointed. Not in the little girl inside of her,
but in herself.
She worried about her husband, her in-laws, her own parents
whose prayers would have likely gone unanswered, too.
But her husband did not seem to care,
nor did her in-laws.
And when her own mother raised an eyebrow, she found that
she did not care either.
And when the time came for her to sit on that examination table again,
one leg folded, the other one stretched,
she did not send any prayers to the Buddhist bodhisattva, Guanyin.
When she was told she was carrying yet another girl,
she smiled because her older little girl would have something
she herself never had: a sister.

I like to think that I intercepted my mother’s initial prayers,
reached out and capsized them
while they sailed toward the Buddhist bodhisattva, Guanyin,
and dragged them to the murky bottom of existence
until they drowned.
I asked her today whether she had ever longed for a son after having two daughters.
I almost want to say that she stroked my cheek
or tightly embraced me or tearfully explained why she did not.
Instead, she leaned back against the pillow,
one leg folded, the other one stretched,
threw her head back and tossed a handful of chips into her mouth
while an episode of Friends played in the background.
Never.

Two Sides of a Coin

Whenever I ask people whether I resemble my mother or my father, the answer is like flipping a coin.
Some people say father, some people say mother. It is never an in-between.
The coin is always flipped.
But when I peer at my reflection, I see neither of their faces mirrored in mine.
Yes, I see shards of them, pieces here and there. But when I line the pieces up like the teeth of a zipper and let them close seamlessly, it is my grandmother looking back at me.

One night in eighth grade, I was brushing my teeth when my mother handed me the phone.
My grandmother was on the line. I said hello, asked her how she was. She said fine.
We both knew it wasn’t true.
My mother started running the vacuum across my bedroom. The rhythmic, almost
high-pitched whirring could not hide the lapses in my grandmother’s speech, the unmistakable tremor in her voice.

I jokingly told her that I didn’t want her to forget me one day.
She was quiet for a while. I winced, wishing that I could cast my hand back in time and reel the lighthearted tone from my voice. Parkinson’s Disease was no laughing matter.
But then my grandmother spoke again.
She told me that she would never, could never forget me because I was her firstborn grandchild. This time, her voice did not shake.
I remember biting my lip to ward off the heat that had crept behind my eyes, gripping the granite countertop until the tips of my fingernails turned pale.
I didn’t want my mom to hear me crying. Not that she could hear anything with the vacuum roaring in her hands, but inside the bathroom, the world had gone silent.

Sometimes, when I miss her, I look in the mirror and try to crack a smile.
I haven’t seen her smile in over three years.
I suppose I could just look at photos. But most of them do not reflect the woman I know.
Her eyes are listless, unfocused.
She is smiling, but it’s the kind of smile you plaster over your face for a school yearbook photo when the assistant is fussing over your hair and you don’t even know where to look but then the photographer shouts, “Say cheese!”
Not the kind that makes lines on your face, smile lines that end in the crinkle of your eyes.
I haven’t seen her smile in over three years, but I haven’t seen her smile properly in ten.

Tonight, I was missing her again.
I clutched the little round mirror on my desk and held my reflection gently between my fingers, like I was cradling her face in my palms.
I imagined that instead of the splotchy face blinking back at me, it was my grandmother gazing at me, shaking her head, telling me not to cry.
I don’t think I ever saw her upset.
Even when it was all being stolen from her, she was gentle and unflustered, reassuring me that she would never forget me though my name slipped from her memory a few years later.
Through my tears, I peered at the dark eyes that we share, the soft curve of our cheeks, the roundness of our faces.
For a moment, it really did seem like she was there.
Like I could flip a coin, and every time it would come back as heads because on either side, the same face was imprinted.

She smiled at me. I smiled back.
This time, I could see the smile lines that ended in the crinkle of our eyes. Someone could come over and flip the coin now, and I wouldn’t even notice.
I never actually told her how much we look alike, but looking back, I bet she already knew.