I just finished Ocean Vuong’s ‘On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous’ while on a sunset flight already knee deep in melancholy and thoughts about wabi-sabi: a Japanese appreciation of the transience of life leaving its mark on objects; finding beauty in the cracked and worn. what I like to call mundane art. all this was swimming inside me while I watched the sun set from the wrong side, the one where the sky turns blue to that dusty lavender and then to the indigo that turns black instead of the blue to orange to red to the west, and I read Vuong’s words. And I cannot give them high enough praise. The way this man wields his words is like nothing I’ve ever seen. Not a page goes by without a metaphor that shakes me like a little piggy bank on its back. He weaves his narratives so seamlessly that you watch a metaphor start awake and fall quietly back into an even breathed sleep. The way Vuong writes makes me want to write and more importantly it makes me want to look at the world and see it. The book is a letter that says everything he wants to tell his mother and can’t. The touch of a lover, the color of the sky, the texture of hurt, and i echo these sentiments everyday as I realize that everything I write is for my mother, every picture i take is a moment I wish she could see. Ocean Vuong brings to the smallest moments the same fervor and depth that I do with much more beautiful words and it’s just the most beautiful thing to behold. I’m privileged to read his stories.