Eating hashbrowns with chopsticks

feels a lot like mixing preserved egg with tofu and too much chili oil — a delicacy that leaves you taking three tums, an overindulgence; it’s a little bit like starfruit plum tea, so cold it numbs; or 32 degrees + the humidity tax, tongue stickysweet with a nostalgia for something your arms can’t reach; and it’s a little like boat-fresh sashimi out of a plastic tray, wasabi too hot, too tacky, clearing your sinuses back to 2005 when you told a joke you can’t remember (and wouldn’t have told now anyways) but it’s repeated again and again; and like falling asleep in your cousin’s car, rocked to subconsciousness by lullabies in a language so deep in your blood, it burns like the blush of an old lover, but you can’t differentiate verbs from nouns; like burdock and incense and tomato hot pot and tapioca and night markets and chlorine and bug nets and a life that’s not quite yours — can’t ever be yours.