I steal what I can. Convenience stores with ever-stocked shelves. Garbage trucks blaring Für

Elise every night like clockwork. Warm, clean bowls of soy milk.

I steal what I need to. Nothing more, nothing less. One sprig of onion, not two. Just a loaf of

bread. The voice-box of that escalator woman: please hold onto the handrail, first in English

then in Chinese. The doors of the sleek subway train, beeping like a child’s toy, like a bomb,

smoothly sliding open.

I steal even if the goods are ugly. Disfigured metal from a car crash, still smoking in the sun.

Sticky, sticky air. Hot against my skin. Beetles fighting to the death. The raspy scream of the

air raid siren.

I steal and I tell myself this is normal, this is normal, this is normal.

Where am I from? Everyone gives me different answers: Republic of China; Chinese Taipei;

Taiwan, Province of China; Taiwan, the real China. I do not know the answer.

As the sun bleeds out I think about whether my house will stand in ten years.