There is something innocent, and heartbreaking, and pure in the act of standing at the window, head tilted back, whispering the deepest secrets of the heart into the night. There is an unspoken desperation in the way that children turn to the dark heavens for comfort, and tonight, I am desperate enough to wish for a different life, in a different country. To wish for something better.

 

I wish that someone had told me, when I was younger, that Asian people were a minority in America. I wish I were courageous enough to join those protestors marching through the streets, lifting signs above their heads bearing slogans like “STOP ASIAN HATE” and “WE WILL NOT BE SILENT,” because all my life, I’ve only ever been silent in the face of hate. I wish I had my sister’s boldness and bravery to speak up. I wish that this pandemic had not occurred in this lifetime, or at least that it had sprung up in any other country than China. I wish that strangers recognized me as a person, not as a culture. And I wish that I were not spending these quiet, still hours of the night wondering about my biological family—wondering who they were, wondering if they survived the riots against the Hong Kong police or the outbreak of COVID-19, wondering if they wonder about me and wish they had done things differently.

 

I could spend all night tossing wishes toward the dark sky, but I’m not a child anymore. I know that the movies and books I used to love lied to me—that the stars don’t actually grant your wishes. I was in high school when I decided that wishing upon stars was just an empty promise fed to dreamers like me. Because the stars, as we see them in the sky, are already dead. The lights we admire, just ghosts.