Elise Kim

Whether it be pride, or shyness or forgetfulness — or maybe just feeling like there’s no need — giving out compliments can feel harder than it needs to be.

Looking at everything through a metaphoric lens allows me to capture it all within a narrower frame — one that’s easier to digest and given specific intention. There's a reason for each scene which contributes to a timeline that has an end.

I have been saved from different things at different points in my life. Funnily enough, none of those moments involved Prince Charming.

While the small things don’t typically make me blush, in the rare situations when I do feel embarrassed, I feel it deeply.

Good advice is becoming replaced with hollow affirmations, and a new layer of hesitancy is being added to our interactions. It’s come to a point where I think we crave genuinity more than ever before, where relationships founded on truth are more desperately sought after.

No matter what, I look ‘too Asian,’ and not in a way that lets me be proud. In other words, I have constantly been made aware that I am other.

In my self-imposed isolation, it felt inappropriate to ask for a hand to hold. Growing up in a culture where conversation about emotions were rare, opening that door felt close to impossible.

I’m not hoping that my admission will be counteracted with validation, but simply that we can mutually acknowledge the existence of our insecurity; to admit that loving ourselves is hard and abstract compared to the reality of not feeling good enough.

I felt like I was in a constant battle between what I knew in my head was best for me and what my heart screamed at me to do, which was to tell him I had made a mistake, that I wanted him back in my life, that I still cared.

My story is not only shaped by spoken conversations or dramatic monologues, but also by my innermost thoughts and the millions of things that tumble through my mind and never leave my mouth.