I live in the windowless toilets of Taipei
I’m in the windowless toilets of Taipei
scrubbing my windowless body
they want to use my body as a meeting room
to milk cows    to volunteer
I have to leave to do the washing    using my two hands
my cat licks open the windows on my body
washes the windowless eyes on my body
it’s gone through my heart
now I’m very good at acting
I live in the windowless toilets of Taipei
I use my body’s train compartments
use the red of my thirty-one years
use these colors to tie up my hair
to wash my face
on Taipei mornings you pray to the gods before breakfast
the water you drink in the morning    the pee you excrete
everything will be displayed in your life exhibition
this life is a pair of thick myopic lenses
surrounded by enemy soldiers    made to write lines in detention
with a sewn-on, ordinary ear
in the third train compartment    I take off my tongue
in those silent thirty kilometres
I close my eyes
my sharpest eye
me and my hunger
me and my hunger
we walk side by side
one section    is elusive and solemn
methodical to a fault
slide it into the stomach
throw it into the sea
emerging from the thicket
discharged from hospital
you pretend to be mother
I pretend to be child
still lacking a pair of eyes
let me describe for you
youth’s colorful shirt
along with her friends
she entered the train station
still wearing her mother’s clothes
a rare housewife disease
these days the weather has been steady
no rain    I’ve gone a month without buying eggs
no particular reason
I’ve lost the desire to buy or eat the eggs from the supermarket,
general store, market, and organic food store
similarly    I’ve lost interest in meat and fish
this is the occurrence of a rare housewife disease
the next stage is refuse-to-cook illness
this disease doesn’t require particular medical attention
getting take-out a couple of times leads to recovery
no cause for concern at all
Emily Lu was born in Nanjing. She completed her MD at Queen’s University in 2017. She is the author of the chapbooks there is no wifi in the afterlife (San Press 2022) and Night Leaves Nothing New (Baseline Press 2019), as well as works appearing in Waxwing, Augur, Honey Literary, Arc Poetry Magazine, and filling Station. She lives in Toronto.
Maniniwei is a Malay-Taiwanese writer and illustrator. She was writer-in-residence at Hong Kong Baptist University in 2021. Her works have been recognized by OPENBOOK, the Bologna Ragazzi Award, the Taoyuan Chung Chao-Cheng Award for Literature, and the National Culture and Arts Foundation. Restarting her creative practice after age 30, she is the author of more than ten books. She lives in Taipei with one child and two cats.
