Thanks for Letting Us Know You Are Alive

Jennifer Tseng is an assistant professor of literature and creative writing at UC Santa Cruz. She is the author of two previous full-length poetry collections: The Man With My Face and Red Flower, White Flower. Her flash fiction collection, The Passion of Woo & Isolde, was a Firecracker Award finalist and winner of an Eric Hoffer Book Award; and her novel, Mayumi and the Sea of Happiness, was shortlisted for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction and the New England Book Award.

I. Not
Not so dear Jenny:
But we two can never divorce each other.
Dear Jenny:
“Please say hi to your family for me.”
Oh, that was quite a letter.
Please let me know how you feel about this understanding. Can you take it or you can care less.
All of a sudden it dooms on me... maybe you already knew.
Parents love for their children has no condition.
Do NOT try any sleeping pills under any circumstances.
Dear Stranger,
Love, Your poor and ignored daddy.
Why should we blame others for forgetting me?
Do not second guess my true feeling.
I sincerely hope it was not a decision derived from the physiological desire of your body.
Diane is here and we are happy to have her with us.
Dear Jenny & Mandy,
As a matter of fact, your daddy is the biggest failure of you all—I could not even hold a family of four together!
To my beloved girl in paradise:
None of the literature Nobel Prize winners I know of were graduated from the most prestigious universities.
(Please note the jade is a genuine jade, not a plastic fake.)
Dear Monkey #1:
I begged her not to do it.
I would have hated myself for not calling or writing you more often when I see the Saint at the Gate. II. So
Now you have completely disappeared.
You are definitely not the outsider.
Good medicine tastes bitter. You should not feel hurt. You should feel being deeply loved.
If I lose in Superior Court, I will appeal myself.
I have tried my best and their is a limit to my patience.
Remember you are an American by birth but a Chinese by heritage, skin, look, and name. Don’t kid yourself about it.
Come to think of it I have really made a fool of myself for so many years.
There is a will there is a way.
Please save this letter for future use as evidence.
You are the one who appears drifting away from us.
I never read one word Toni Morrison wrote.

III. Dear
There is no short cut.
I wonder how you manage to survive.
You probably never can imagine how often I thought of you, fond of you.
The advice meant well at least.
We are happy to hear that you’re not lonely.
We sincerely hope that you’d make the right decision all the time in the future.
Roses Are Red / Violets Are Blue / My Admire For You / Will Always Be True! / Your Secret Admirer
Dear Baby: You are approaching the end of your rope.
Drink a glass of warm milk.
I have a strong mixed feeling regarding myself.
Dearest Jenny,
Dearest Jenny:
Please ask your mother one more time to drop the warrant for my arrest.
My dearest Jenny:

Notes
Acknowledgments