The Art of Becoming

by Rachel Lee

Etienne Girardet

Of winning battles only to lose the war I hear them whisper. The ones in my mind, I hear them creep. Monday morning, love, I am not good enough. Friday night, darling, I think I’ve pushed too hard. I play at house —  the kind to live in, the kind to represent —  squirm on the same feedback: don’t put your soul into it. They say nunchi is a subtle art. The eye teaches you to feel in an airless room, seeking secrets writ plain in the in-between. How much of language learning is the art of giving people what they need to hear? They play with their borders of acceptance. I sit across from them, betting with my being.

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Rachel Kuanneng Lee is a Singaporean poet. Her work appears in or is forthcoming at Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, The Tiger Moth Review, wildness, No Contact, Entropy and elsewhere. She was a finalist for the Live Canon 2020 competition. She is a Brooklyn Poets Fellow. She is also co-founder of a data science startup and hopes that someday, she might be able to make a coherent narrative out of her career choices, even if today is not quite that day. You can find her online at rachel-lee.me.