Sue Zhao

Writer. Instagram: s.m.zhao © Sue Zhao 2026 Linktree Sign up to my Newsletter

[blossomfully]

“What’s your greatest fear?” she asks.

“To be forgotten,” I tell her. “But not just that. To be forgotten by a person who I could never forget.“

[blossomfully]

Tired of optimising. Tired of living to be productive, of never ending to-do-lists and overdue tasks. Tired of follow-up emails characterised as “just checking-in”, and the self-imposed pressure to grow and improve and be better and everyday better. Some days - the difficult days - I look back and everything is still the same. I’m still 18 experiencing the most devastating loss I’ve ever known. I’m still 21 falling in love for the first time, I’m still 23, losing it. I’m 25, afraid to be touched by anything that isn’t tepid, worried that decisions to be vulnerable will be another gross miscalculation of devotion, feeling totally unhinged, lost even despite revelation after revelation. How many books can you read about yourself before you understand? How many conversations, or journal entries, or journeys of self-discovery before you stop surprising and disappointing yourself at every juncture? I am not myself. I am entirely myself. I can’t ever lose myself even if I wanted to. Some days I can’t decide if I want to.

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Being in your twenties is feeling like time is running out / wanting to do something with your life but not knowing what / is like falling in love and not knowing whether it will last / because the last time it didn’t / is getting pangs of emotions you thought you’d left behind when you turned 19 / is rewatching cartoons at 1am and realising you missed so many of the jokes as a kid / is romanticising tiny apartments / or any space to call your own / is reaching out to old friends / with no good excuse / is getting on a plane for a second chance / and finally forgiving because now you understand / is unravelling and not knowing if it means you’ll disappear / and losing faith and believing in fate and whispering clichés, head pressed into a pillow one weekend, hoping

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Can’t believe my last post on here was from 2022 - tumblr you will always have my heart and soul even if by now it’s just a shout into the void

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Don’t often wish for time to pass but can’t wait until 2023

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[blossomfully]

Cumulonimbus

He told me he did not understand

the language of wanting. Of

wanting more or

different or

better or

for respite or

contrition,

redemption -

He said

there is such a thing as taking life

as it comes; not unfeeling, unresponsive to

its whims but rather in taking its warm hand

sometimes, in your

uncertain hand the way

a child wandering through a crowd

unconsciously reaches for the larger digits or

the coat hems, slips a hand into the

pockets of the one who will pick them up,

hold them close.

It is, after all, a perception of caregiving,

of life, the illusion of control and love are

as real as the shape of the clouds

on a Summer’s day. A dog, an elephant,

suddenly you are laughing at the ridiculousness,

your face buried into his chest

you are both shaking with joy, and love.

Next year, you are on different continents

no longer speaking.

You can always want, he said, but there is no use

in it. You cannot touch the clouds by

wanting. You have to go into them.

Sue Zhao

[blossomfully]

Sue Zhao

[blossomfully]

Sue Zhao

[blossomfully]

[blossomfully]

“What’s your greatest fear?” she asks.

“To be forgotten,” I tell her. “But not just that. To be forgotten by a person who I could never forget.“

[blossomfully]

Sue Zhao

[blossomfully]

Sue Zhao

[blossomfully]

From my trip to the US earlier this year :)

———

1. Renoir, The Daughters of Catulle Mendès

2. Renoir, A Road in Louveciennes

3. Van Gogh, Sunflowers

4. Dewing, Summer

5. Van Gogh, Roses

6. Van Gogh, Irises

7. Renoir, Still Life with Peaches

[blossomfully]

hey sue, i always tune in to read your wonderful pieces of art, please never stop writing. now, i came to ask if you’ve ever been in a position where you know you’re always going to love someone, regardless of any relationship you might pursue? it’s like you’ve settled for accepting that it might not work out between you two so you venture to find love in other people knowing that you’re always going to love this person? making peace with your feelings for someone while fishing the love you deserve in others ? no just me ?

I think I’ve felt this way about every person I’ve ever loved, and a couple who I never quite got there with. And I think there’s some truth in the feeling, and some exaggeration, and a lot of humanity. I think that as people, as much as we like to look forward to the future or back at the past, most of the things we predict don’t come true and most of the things we lament are imprecise memories. We can’t but to live in the present moment, feeling joy or anguish or love as we do. And of course our present emotions will cast their light on how we perceive our futures to be, but we mustn’t let them colour our experiences so far that we shut ourselves off to new love.

[blossomfully]

Confessional // Sue Zhao

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The concept of teaching people how to treat you is so wild to me - especially people who love you. I always believed that in love people would treat you right without having to be taught but I guess the nuances to what “right” means have to be communicated too