The Unpaid Work of Remembering | Him, You, and Our Warren of Rabbits

This prose poem is not exactly a story, but something I carry deep in my heart. Some of it might be true. Some of it might be fiction. I don’t think it matters. The man. The city. Our warren of wild, soulful, tender “rabbits”—that’s what we called our children. It started as a joke between us. Five—wild, loud, deeply loved—and a sixth on the way. We bred like rabbits.

It’s a dream, truth and fiction, a love poem, but a lament too. A grief for a love suspended across timelines and realities. A love that endures in absence. In what could have been. And maybe—what still is, in another dimension of the heart.

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What job would I do for free? I’d write. I’d write about things no one else sees or knows about. About memories. About experiences no one else stayed long enough to remember. I’d write about the years in Taipei, about things that transpired long ago. Maybe they’re truth. Maybe fiction. No one needs to know. I’d write about the loneliness of walking alone through Da’an Forest Park, how the trees sheltered my secrets. About stray cats weaving between puddles in Datong alleyways. About the buzz of Ningxia night market, the smell of grilled squid, sweet mochi, stinky tofu hung in the air like incense for the gods of desire. I’d write about him, about you. 

Our rooftop talks, sunsets at Tamsui Lover’s Bridge, our trips to Jiufen, to Sanmao’s house in Chingchuan, to Okinawa, to Kunming. About how silence is more powerful than words when two people want to touch but don’t, not yet, not now. I’d write about him walking the city when sleep won’t come— crime cases wrapped around his mind like smoke. About the nights he barely made it home before dawn. Keys tossed, shoes kicked off, collapsing into the couch still in his wrinkled shirt, smelling of gunpowder, coffee, and the rain that doesn’t wash anything clean. And in that half-dream state, he’d swear he could feel me there—my warmth brushed against his back.

I’d write about the nights when ghosts clawed their way back into his mind, when the faces of the dead refused to fade, and he’d hold me close, mooring himself in the beat of my skin, needing to remember he was here, not there. I’d write about the version of him no one sees—the one who stares into the dark, haunted, distant. The one I loved quietly. The one I reached for with firm hands, fingers running through his hair as if I could smooth away everything he didn’t say. I’d write about the moments when I knew that no matter how much I loved him, a part of him would always remain just out of reach.

And I’d write about our sweet rabbits. Our warren of tenderness and imagination. Aidan Do, Lina Do, Elias Do, Rayya Do, Noel Do. They were born out of desire and longing, not blood, and were spun into life with whispered what-ifs and gentle memories. Maybe no one else remembers them. Do you? I do. Their stories return to me while folding laundry or when my tea goes cold. Even now, two decades later. Aidan, with his quiet mischief and cloud-gazing heart. Lina, messy and luminous, chasing the world with charcoal hands and galaxy eyes. Elias, our sweet Elias, who has your eyes, hands, and feet, keeper of broken things. Rayya, a breeze in motion, laughter tucked behind her teeth. Noel, youngest and oldest somehow, knowing the end before the beginning even began.

They were ours. They are ours.

You brought them to life with your words, love. And I gave them breath with my remembering. We made them together. If I could bend time, I’d keep them safe in a garden behind our home. You’d sketch while I write. We’d argue over dinner, then laugh about it before bed. On mornings we rushed to work and school, you, darling, begged me to bend over the sink while our babies bickered in the car. And on rainy nights, we’d tell stories to our rabbits about the world before and after us and everything we tried to save.

But we can’t bend time.

So I write. Even when no one asks me to. Even when no one reads. Even when you forget me and our babies. Because, love, some stories don’t want to be sold. Some stories just want to be kept. And some jobs are not about money. They’re about keeping love from vanishing.

Like him.

Like you.