i graduate from college the fall of 2004. i move back into my father's house in sherman oaks, los angeles, and i start a small but exciting internship at a big architecture firm. i spend my days making photocopies and my nights playing playstation 2. i live rent free and i put all my income into savings for my own house in the suburbs. i have nothing to worry about so i gain weight. one night i try to finally start working on my book and i realize that i had forgotten how to write. i learn that safety inhibits creativity and that the most daring things only come out of a fear of dying. i pack my bags to travel the world for a year and i learn all sorts of amzing things that i forget within 2 months of returning home. i decide to go to an architecture graduate school that no one has ever heard of. i graduate. i become an architect at 30. i'm bored so i get married. my wife and i move into our own house in san diego. we have a daughter. i forget all my worries and i become all my daughter's worries. i live my life renovating homes and designing parks. i die at 56 by a heart attack.


i graduate from college the fall of 2004 and i move into an apartment in the east bay with two college friends. we're all unemployed. we spend the day looking for jobs and the night painting, writing, and reading poetry. our apartment is an artistic mess. we complete a short film every two months. one of my roommates finishes his play and spends his time to directing it in san francisco. we get invovled in the asian american artistic movement in the bay area. i find a job as a high school teacher. i also volunteer at a city planner's office. i go to film school in new york. i use the resources to make a feature film and i shop it around film festivals. it doesn't work out. i decide to risk it all to make another film. i break even when a distributor buys the rights to release the film. i make more movies but the love becomes a job and i lose the passion for it. i live in a vineyard in the south of france. i marry once but she leaves me. we have no children. when i retire i spend my days swimming in the mediterranean sea, hiding my tears below sea level. i drown at the age of 72.


i graduate from college the fall of 2004. i marry early and we settle in san francisco, where we struggle financially together. my internship at an architecture firm doesn't pay enough so i take a night shift as a security guard at the mall. i have no time for writing. i have no time on my own. i hate my job. she gets pregnant. i leave her one night and i move somewhere far away. she has a daughter named emily who never meets her daddy. i move to hong kong and i feel more lost than ever. i teach english at a chinese school. i visit all the places of my childhood. i write to my ex-wife often, begging forgiveness, but she won't see me. i return to america but i can't stand to write anymore. it hurts too much to pick up a pen. i decide that i want to be a doctor. i work the night shift as a volunteer at the local hospital. i go to med school at the age of thirty three. i become a doctor at thirty eight. i open a practice in chicago. i adopt a daughter. i raise her to be a poet and an activist because i didn't dare be one. i am dreaming of emily when i die in my sleep at the age of 64.