Such radiant resistance, such luminous fight.

[halfcactus]

Recently read/watched and too lazy to write about:

Webtoons: Marry My Husband; The Remarried Empress (dropping at S4, which is ongoing); 穿越成反派要如何活命 To Be or Not To Be / How To Survive As a Villain (DNF)

TV: 女世子 The Heiress

Movies: 不說話的愛 Mumu (2025); Omniscient Reader: The Prophecy (2025); The Quiet Girl (2022)

Books: Burning Houses & Hush Harbor

Stay
Mookie Katigbak-Lacuesta

Discovered: two wings locked in amber
from millions of years ago; the bones
smaller than a hummingbird's, only

partially emerged, the bones, they say,
of a hatchling—You can see claw marks on the amber
where the bird struggled against sticky resin,

at the moment it had engulfed its wing.
Such radiant resistance, such luminous fight.
The color of honey and dirty light.

She served you papers when I was nine,
cheeky and red from America;
her fingerprints prised on the staple so they fell

like a bad hand. I saw your purpose and surprise;
your cold and toothless appraisal: What's this?
you asked, and I loved you for your disbelief.

I could not turn myself into a lie: Proof I was
of a bible you swore by. I took as fact my body,
the eyes that looked back from the mirror.

The fact of wings on a bird so young
confounds the specialists; they note
on ancient young the skill of modern birds,

mark the feathers on the hatchling,
perfectly preserved, already poised for flight.
You said the one word. I drowned

in the slow gold.

"Stay" was informed by an article on Smithsonian.com