Open Your Eyes

July 22, 2026
Yilin loves wearing mismatched socks and making beautiful gifts with yarn and scraps she finds around the house. Instead of buying her friends gifts, she prefers to make them so that she can experience that moment of delight when her friends feel seen and loved. Yilin makes roses out of paper, and when she doesn’t have glue, she uses clear nail polish. She makes her own clothes and costumes, makes films on her phone that make people feel not alone, and has the courage to tell her story of moving from Beijing to America when she was seven and finding out being Chinese wasn’t cool. Over time, with the help of her philosopher mother, Yilin learned to become a human and artist she loves even though her mom says her fashion style resembles someone homeless.
This story took place in United States

Pledge to Take Action

We humans tend to ignore what we do not see, and due to psychic numbing, tragedies that don’t affect us directly. However, we simply cannot survive without a healthy and biodiverse ocean. It is the lifeblood of the planet. In this poem, I attempt to open people’s eyes to what we are doing before it is too late.

Pledge to Take Action