Because I can't write something new, I'll post something old.

Summarily:

I am born an amalgamation of the Midwest,
not like my brothers who are half Japanese, born
with a culture already inside of them.
I learn early how to shovel,
how to write,
how to deep fry anything I can get my hands on, anything that
was once alive.
At the age of eight, I am resigned to
cancer and at least two heart attacks.
At the house, I am never permitted to help with heavy lifting. My mother
talks a lot, says very little, and teaches me how to do the dishes. She
tries with futile effort to make me remember
where the cheese grater is stored. Even young, I understand that what
you buy and wear
represents you as
a person; I buy
glass bottles filled with sand and
fruit scented lotion and striped shirts and wallow in all of it.
Eventually my family stops supporting my rampant addiction to consumerism.
Years later, I get a job at a small office where the only thing
in the fridge was canned beer.

My first heartbreak, at the age of nine:
my mother says I have to say goodbye to all my
childhood friends, hug their cotton filled bodies one last
time.
Three can stay—I choose to save a white cat,
a blue tiger, and a husky.
I regret having to let the big pink rabbit die. I love him, and
cry to see him put in the trash with yesterday’s leftovers, and plastic
wrapping from my little brother’s newest toys, and too many
used coffee filters. Years later,
I grow up, and hate the smell of coffee until the day I die.