Dear #2,
Your father, you ask? It's not your turn to know. We shall proceed in a dignified manner. I will not run. And I will no longer lose my mind when I hear your voice. The passage begins with Number One.

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"Please, Daddy, don't leave me."
"No room in my duffel,"he replied flatly.
"Then put me in a box," I told him. "I'll be a good girl. I promise."
"You are a good girl," he said, placing his warm hand on my face. "But Daddy's traveling light. No room for you. Sorry, pal."
I grasped on to his hand. "You love me, Daddy?" I asked.
"True love is freedom, kiddo," he answered after a long silence. "Freedom with a capital F."

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At the airport, Grace was monotone. "Say goodbye to me," she said. I stared at Celeste, my mouth agape.
"Mama?" Celested gasped.
"I'll send your things later," she said, turning.
"No Mama. What's going on?" I asked. "Why are you sending us away?"
She refused to answer me.
"You take care of Sonia, Celeste. Tell Granny Almas she's allergic to shrimp." She gave her a push. "Go, there's your flight." Celeste took my hand in hers.
"I hate you," I said to my mother, who never turned back to look at me.

So I say it every day. Every day until the day she turns to look at me and hear me. Listen, Mama, keep this word:
Burn/in/Hell.

--Father of the four passages, Lois-Ann Yamanaka

 
"There was a young man whose throat was stuffed with rubber tubes. I watched him die clawing for breath, gasping desperately for the air that could not enter his lungs. I knew it was hard to die. It was hard to live I had discovered, but it was even harder to die."

--America is in the heart by Carlos Bulosan

 
I'd like to understand where my life is going. Because I don't. I'd like to understand how one can work so hard for something, dedicate everything to one goal and never see results, never experience any measure of success. How does one wrap one's head around failure? How does one incorporate it into life? Not giving up is key. So they say. But not seeing results is exhausting. Counter-intuitive to everything we're taught. I can't figure out what else to do. I can't figure out how else to do it. All I can think about is that I'm not where I need to be. I can't accept where I am. And that leaves me in limbo. In darkness. Confused.

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"To be hopeless means believing there is no future different from the present."
--The Obedient Father, Akhil Sharma