Fefe Ho
Fefe is an aro-ace Chinese-American writer, currently living in Beijing. She has done various ghostwriting and novel-translation gigs throughout university but now just writes fanfics in her free time. An Army since high school, she likes to say that if life is a movie, then BTS is her OST.
L-O-V-E
is cheesy / vanilla sweetness /sweetie pie / spicy / fire / in my veins
smells like roses / champagne / pink bubbles / the soft breeze on a summer night
and maybe laundry detergent / herbal chinese medicine / the content
of your stomach when you’re drunk and puking into the toilet
I smooth your hair and drag you by the collar
toss you into bed
tastes like the fruit mom slices and throws onto the table. the seeds
spell out sorry and it’s the feeling I get on the 6th birthday spent overseas
she says ‘will you ignore me
forever’ and ‘just want you to be happy’
I dig fingers into my chest and squeeze
my lungs
is the word I’d rather chew on glass than say
out loud because mom raised me with a knife mouth and tofu heart
I guess, when you have shards of glass in your lips
you can’t kiss or say those tender things unless
you want to taste the metallic on your tongue / so you say those other things
because you know they will not hate you forever and others say
this is dysfunctional. I admit
that this is maybe my kind of
love.
notes of an average beipiao
(author’s note: beipiao, “beijing drifters,” is a term for those who come to the capital to chase a dream or better future)
In Beijing, it’s hard to breathe during the spring
Fluffs of willow float in the sky
They get past your mask, clumping in your hair like snow
Flower season, you follow the crowds to the park
Aunties with silk scarves dot the green
The fragrance of blossoms, perfume, and blush dance with the pollen in the air
Sweat from air conditioning boxes sprinkle down from the side of buildings
It’s summer and Six Gods is the new cologne
At night, you sit on beer crates at a street stall
Alcohol and cigarette smoke cling to the grease on chuan’r
The spices overtake your senses
In the heat, even the city’s breakneck speed melts
Lethargic, nostalgic
The night is young
Beijing doesn’t really have autumn
You count down to National Day, to the Mid-Autumn Festival, to when central heating comes
The ground is littered with red and gold
It smells like the sky is burning
Mid-November is spent surrounded by mountains of cardboard
Your phone vibrates constantly
“Due to the influx of deliveries from Double 11, you must pick up your items today. Today!!”
The days are getting shorter
Winter, you take out your long puffer jacket
It still smells like the smog from last year
The filtered mask keeps your face warm, fogs your glasses
If only it will snow
You sweat in the subway and brace against the cold when you step outside
The biting wind wafts over the scent of roasted chestnuts and sweet potatoes
Holding the thin bag, your fingers freeze but your palm is warm
The sweetness melts in your mouth
Lights line the way home
“I laugh here, I cry here”
“I live here, I die here”
“If one day I must leave, I hope I can be buried here”
Someone sings on the bridge
“If love and hate are the same word, I love you, Beijing”
“If love and hate are the same word, I hate you, Beijing”
shine yourself
Alt Text: Poem reads “when I was a boy, he said, I would look up at the stars / but when my heart stopped at nine or ten, I stopped looking and started worrying / he began to look through the eyes of others / listening to their voices, living their lives / but the stars, they never left / shining down from that same spot in the sky / waiting for the boy to look up once again / maybe they knew - maybe they’d seen the light in his eyes - / that one day he would shine in his own right / a star for so many other young and beating hearts / - fefedove.”
The background is of BTS’ RM looking to the right and leaning on a railing. The clouds are grayish blue with light white specks.
to create the next XXX
the curious, the envious
try and try
dig and analyze
to find the thing that makes one successful
the one selling point that makes hordes of ‘delusional teenage girls’ scream and cry and spend money willingly.
-it’s love
-it’s genuineness,
they say
-it’s their passion for their dream that ignites our passion for them, for life, for ourselves
is that the secret to stealing hearts and wallets?
dissect, extract, put back together
a smile here, a word there, a Frankenstein
of commercial success
a chemical formula, the certain temperature to heat
a heart pulsing with hot blood
the specific wattage a star should shine to illuminate the road to wealth
find it and one will be able to package and mass-produce the raw pureness
you can’t, we say
we will, they say
when everything can be conceptualized as theories, as PR tactics, as KPIs
they stare at the abstract love I clutch to my chest with laughing and hungry eyes
and I wonder just how valuable
sincerity
is.