# Waking Up

**Published by:** [Adam Lanphier](https://paragraph.com/@adam-lanphier/)
**Published on:** 2021-12-10
**URL:** https://paragraph.com/@adam-lanphier/waking-up

## Content

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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