# Waking Up

By [Adam Lanphier](https://paragraph.com/@adam-lanphier) · 2021-12-10

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I rise without joy, daub on some rouge,

And force myself to look in the mirror. My face is

still grey.

I’m gaunt from worry.

I’m desperately lonely. I cry a lot.

At my dressing table, my maid helps blacken my

eyebrows

And I suffer her to steam my braids.

Plum blossoms for my hair!

She really is an idiot.

—Zhu Shuzhen, trans. Adam Lanphier

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*Originally published on [Adam Lanphier](https://paragraph.com/@adam-lanphier/waking-up)*