Species: Lonicera subspicata
San Diego sweet, dewgong1 white honeysuckles fill the black vinyl fences, separating
us kids from “the real world.” As a daily ritual, I spend recess foraging them, plucking
honeysuckles off diamond-shaped openings. Today it’s after I scrape my jansport
knees—the popular wasp kids don’t wanna include loud me and my boi crush chose
Barbie Ashley over me. I feel like the playground’s tired rubber floor. At least there’s
honeysuckles: free gregarious snacks with petals flared like Farrah Fawcett hair.
Oh to bloom like you without the need for external praise. Ivory honeysuckles wear their
emerald leaves like ostrich boas, happily faint into play-doh fingers who covet your long
stamen: yellow straws springing out from your tapered center. I suck on these for
a butterscotch buzz. Can’t recall who taught me to pinch them between thumb & index.
Someone’s older woodchip sibling? I shift my weight crestfallen there’s only roly polys
& sage scrub to ask. The honeysuckle haven turns my monkey bar hands sticky, the very
oobleck hands who made turkeys earlier. Honeysuckles taste like caramelized fishing line,
like how it felt to find 25¢ in my pocket for the gumball crank at Ranch 99 where hangry I
will accompany Mama after Chinese school tennis; like realizing I’m actually early
to the function, not late; like having working parents arrive on time so you’re not last at
drop-off; like eventually not taking it so personally. One brother left you for Middle
School, the other for UC Irvine. I pull a wedding dress honeysuckle, their rhubarb vines
patient. They don’t mind if I skip church or what I wear to church. Honeysuckles are
trumpets I sneak into DEAR2 time for girls I don’t realize are crushes. If I were one I’d
befriend honeybees I once feared but ache to be. I’d offer extra nectar to good apples who
dreaded going home like I did. Home: empty two-story conch shell, chaparral cinched
wonder what is wrong with me. Lonely in this unhappy-should-be-happy, I flip a square
tawny red pillow to hide my cheese puff fingerprints. Laoye is a comma asleep on the sofa
mandrake body a’snore, Chinese soap opera still going. How fun to exit human skin,
be a honeysuckle with perfect pitch, naturally sweet, turn drab fences beautiful.
My stunning short life devoted to tasty feelgood, laughing ladybugs, holy jacarandas.
My desire to be wanted won’t be satiated by others: I need to want myself.
I need to want myself. Be my own bounty.
Stop believing all I do is hurt people I love.
Learn from the honeysuckle halcyons of my past—practice memorizing my worth.
I need what feels feels impossible: an overdue rainfall of desire for myself, a rushing
deluge lining every curb a majesty for myself banyan roots upheaving sidewalks.
1 Yes, the pokémon.
2 Drop Everything and Read
Emdash AKA Emily Lu Gao (高璐璐) is a writer, open mic maker, and daughter of Chinese immigrants. She writes to heal, grow, and decolonize. They’ve earned funding from Sundress Publications, Bread Loaf Environmental Writers Conference, Jersey City Arts Council, Minnesota Northwoods Writers Conference, and Rutgers-Newark—where they received an MFA in Poetry and taught undergraduates creative writing. She has also received a Best of the Net 2023 nomination in poetry and microfiction. Her writing can be found in underblong, Sine Theta, Poetry.Online, Kissing Dynamite, The Bellingham Review, Kweli Journal, Mochi Magazine, The Rumpus, Split Magazine, YLWRNGR and more. They’ve read at the San Diego Art Institute, Sunday Jump, Unnameable Books and more. They are Missouri-born, California-raised, and based in anxiety. When not writing, she’s likely telling one too many jokes. For full publication and performance history, visit emdashsays.com.