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Maw Shein Win: Three Thought Logs

Thought Log #1

My mouth is being occupied.  

Sometimes I feel lonely. Then I don’t.

I eat another bowl of kitchari. Can taste the tiny chunks of ginger.

Sip detox tea.

I have a girl crush on Sandy, my PT.

I dream of swinging on an old rope from the edge of a cliff.

In another dream I walk into a lit up room and see a giant X covered in sequins.

I believe in the healing power of crystals.

Our calico is slowly dying.

A ceramic swallow from Portugal.

My husband’s laughter from the study.

I reimagine cures.

Sensory transmissions.

Lee thought my hair had turned white due to pandemic stress.

The pain therapist leads us on a guided visualization through a meadow.

I swim in a field of pathogens.

Thought Log #2

A dream of suitcases breaking open displaying numerous cakes.

An apparition of snapped trees.

The suburbs are sinking.

I record my mood shifts and pain flares in a blue notebook.

Floating holidays.

Dream bigger than an Airstream.

Surrender fully to the movement.

Dad knew he was going to die because he saw two vultures that morning.

The neurologist will return in an hour.

Cemented memory.

Identify your top three unhelpful thinking styles.

Bloodline from a Burmese king.

Staying quiet would be resistant of our dominant culture’s obsession with productivity.

I drop into my body and pay attention to the alarm system.

Drink watermelon juice to soothe your inner fire.

Thought Log #3

Ribbon strips and handmade mask on a driveway.

The time I made out with a stranger behind the Anti-Club in LA. He had a tattoo
of an egg on his neck which I found odd but thrilling.

Asemic energies.

Waiting for the light to sound.

Fictitious cousins.

I am an optimist by nature.  

The 18-year-old gamer in my voice acting class who can channel a cartoon poodle.

Sensate exteriors.

That scene in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory where they’re on a boat in
the tunnel of terror.

The brilliance of crow.  

Our cat’s fur falls in oily clumps. She caterwauls at 3am.

Eleven flavors to choose from.

My lifelong fear of moths with their feathered wings and moving antennae.

Thoughts as objects, toppled monuments.

How I felt until I didn’t anymore.

If he stoops low enough, the river will sink too.

Maw Shein Win

Maw Shein Win is a poet, editor, and educator who lives and teaches in the Bay Area. Her poetry chapbooks are Ruins of a glittering palace (SPA/Commonwealth Projects) and Score and Bone (Nomadic Press). Invisible Gifts: Poems was published by Manic D Press in 2018. She was a 2019 Visiting Scholar in the Department of English at UC Berkeley. Win is the first poet laureate of El Cerrito, California (2016 - 2018), and her new full-length poetry collection is Storage Unit for the Spirit House on Omnidawn. She often collaborates with visual artists, musicians, and other writers.

Photo Credit: Annabelle Port

http://www.mawsheinwin.com/
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