Ocean Vuong delves into love and self

“Someday I will love Ocean Vuong.”

—From the poetry collection "Night Sky with Wounds"

How long does it take to say “I love you”? When the object of that love is not another person but oneself, the time required can stretch beyond a lifetime, leaving the confession seemingly impossible.

Saying “I love myself” is not simple. Its meaning depends on how the speaker interacts with others and interprets the world. The phrase can be as small as a single grain of sand or as vast as a desert. At times, it feels wasted or even unbearable, prompting a desire to reject it.

To understand how long it took Vuong to reach this realization, one must consider his personal history as a Vietnamese-American writer of poetry and fiction in English, including his first autobiographical novel, "On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous." Understanding Vuong’s history is also understanding his family’s past, from a grandmother who survived the Vietnam War while giving birth to a child with an American soldier to generations grappling with trauma, addiction, and loss. Vuong refines these layers of immigrant and queer identity, transforming pain into precise language and elevating a life marked by suffering into one of beauty and transcendence. Ultimately, this journey leads him to love.

“Ocean, rise. The most beautiful part of your body is its future. Remember, even loneliness counts as time spent with the world.”