Flame, Glass and Ink are Poems, essays, and reading notes by Stefania Joori Suh

Author: Stephanie Suh

  • prompt 105

    Who are your favorite people to be around?

    My Camille and Toro from left to right

    I don’t trust a man, a woman, the young, the old, the good or the bad. People are not to be trusted, as Albert Einstein himself observed it too. So, I don’t have favorite people, which is also meritocratic and egoistic. Loves, I have, and they are my cats who appraoch me and want to play with me, even if people don’t.

    People may be kind at first, but they change their feelings toward you depending on who and what you are. People talk of love as a gadget, such as a smartphone, when they do not realize what love is. So, I do not beg it and desperately seek a society of my favorite people because today’s favorite people may give you cold shoulders tomorrow.

    Yet my cats are different. They come to me when I go to bed at night or wherever I am at home. They bunt their little heads forcibly against my hands or legs as though to confirm I am loved. And they listen to me attentively when I talk to them. I know my cats have souls, and we will depart this world together for the distant star, our final destination. I don’t covet Goddess Freya with her chariot driven by the two cats, for my cats are not my subjects or pets but love.

  • Prompt 104

    Write about your approach to budgeting.

    I believe that the simple is the best in every aspect of my so-called life, so I try to plan my budgeting as minimally as possible to make it realistically achievable in the way that works for me.

    This year, I have started keeping a personal ledger book to discipline my expenditure habits that worked adversely. So, I got a pocket-sized personal budget planner I carry about to record my daily expenses against my checking account. Also, I save $100.00 from my paystub to my savings account. I used to save $200.00, but then I habitually spent it all on my Amazon shopping. $100.00 seems more achievable, and it has worked so far.

    Every night I write my diary and review my budget planner to reflect a day’s work and progress. It gives me a sense of control in myself because by writing with pen to paper, my acts of a day become visual through actualization. Aristotle said we are what we repeatedly do, so I want to try it myself.

  • prompt 103

    Have you ever unintentionally broken the law?

    The Accused 😅

    Breaking the law springs up a grim faced judge with a wig with a gavel prone to sentence: “Death by hanging.” But no one is immaculately clean, and to err is a human. I broke the following laws, but I am not a hypocrite, as supported by Robert Frost: “Far more violence has been done in obeying the law than in breaking the law.”

    1. Diatary Law – I enacted this law on the first day of 2024 to return to the disciplined dieting I used to keep five years ago. I broke the sections of eating after 6:00 pm, indulging in carb-enriched food articles at home, and consuming a load of junk food. Now that my doctor has ordered me to lose weight until a follow-up visit in three months, I shall abide by the law in full force and effect.

    2. Law of Affirmation – I have violated all of the sections of the law: Imagination, Visualization, and Manifestation, all of which unintentionally – and intentionally. It is unintentional because when things do not go well as I expect them to or life seems unkind to me, my eyes become blind, my ears mute, and my head blank. I become comatose, thus violating the law. Intentional in the sense that when I am lost of all, including the will to live, the law seems needless, just as I am not here.

    The consequences of the violation come not in they do a single spy but in a battalion. Health risks, such as high cholesterol and diabetes, may be foreseeable. Mental health will be put in critical care if they do not adhere to the above laws. Give me a month as a corrective period, and I will reinvent myself.

  • prompt 102

    If there was a biography about you, what would the title be?

    Wandering Ghost without face

    A ghost wandering with the streams of sorrow’s salt fire billowed on her glass heart, shattered, changed forever, has no face because she knows not what face she has. She sees it beautiful, yet severe, bright but dark. No one wants to see her, and everyone decides to ignore her. She has become invisible, and by and by, she loses her face and thus becomes invisible as people want her to be. Just like her star losing the brightness of the fire, her spirit loses the luster of light. Alas, never to acquaint joy, footless to wander evermore.

  • prompt 101

    If you had the power to change one law, what would it be and why?

    I will abolish the At-Will Employment law so that the employer cannot terminate the employee at any time without notice.

    I have seen people fired, and most of the time, it’s not because of the poor work performance of the employees but because of personal traits that collide with their supervisors/managers/colleagues, who appear to be all neurotypical.

    Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times depicts how a man is treated as an expendable component of the systematic organization. We are neither AIs nor toy soldiers marching forward unquestioningly at the command of winding tape. Therefore, I will abolish this inhumane At-Will Employment law so that people don’t need to fear losing financial security and mental stability. It will decrease the increasing rates of homelessness and poverty.

  • prompt 100

    Daily writing prompt
    Write about your dream home.
    View all responses

    I prefer the sea to the mountains. The sea opens my heart to infinite possibilities, imbued with mysterious hopes and yearnings. Accordingly, my dream home is an apartment with a view of the sea, preferably the Mediterranean Sea, whose image is always the Sun, the Azure Skies, and the vibrant ambiance that speaks PLESANTNESS.

    I will decorate my balcony with pretty flowers and a table with a parasol to have breakfast or read books with a glass of iced coffee. My bedroom will also view the ocean from the sizeable sun-filled window. I prefer one bedroom, which is large enough to be both a home office and a bedroom. Of course, there will be plenty of space for my cats, Toro and Camille. Because of my fur babies, I dream of my dream apartment where they can roam around, run around, and play around.

    There are lovely apartments with such ocean views here in Southern California, but they don’t have the same ambiance as their counterparts on the Amalfi Coast. Something about that place captures my heart, so it will be my dream to live there in my dream home with my cats. That will be lovely.