Lieu Chi Nguyen is a Vietnamese Australian emerging writer and scholar residing on Yirrganydji Country. She has been a member of Sweatshop Literacy Movement since 2017. Her short fiction and non-fiction have been published in SBS Voices, Kill Your Darlings and various anthologies, namely This Little Red Thing (Sweatshop 2019), Sweatshop Women (Sweatshop 2019 and 2020), Heroines: An Anthology of Short Fiction and Poetry: Volume 3 (Neo Perennial Press 2020) and Love (Sweatshop 2025). She was shortlisted for the RUSSH Magazine Literary Showcase 2026 and the 2020 Heroines Women’s Writing Prize.
She is a Media and Communications Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) candidate at the University of New England.
All the Houses I’ve Lived In (National Police Check)
Zero to Eighteen
Out of the incubator box,
I cradled to another (box),
one of many inside
a red-brick slab.
Sometimes the power was out, and
roach eggs smelt like
dried man sweat.
College
Fledgling adult, I Country-linked,
one way ticket,
to a room,
in a hollow cube,
as if constructed
with Minecraft.
Central, a grassy square,
mud-stuck with Passion Pop.
In July there was a mechanical bull.
College 2
The Village smelled like
tiệm thuốc bắc,
Laoganma chilli oil,
burned-out radiator heater,
damp socks.
Bros hung shit on me for everything
but they took me out for fried chicken.
Nursing Quarters
Before I moved out,
I looked inside the microwave and saw
stalactites of Lean Cuisine (et al.)
so old,
they had spiral perms.
Uni Rental
The boys screamed about milk,
left on the kitchen counter.
Us girls waited outside in the sun.
I wasn’t scared though –
I was tough back then.
Granny Flat
My landlord, ex copper,
got post-traumatic stress,
so, she fashioned a menagerie
of 7 dogs and 3 cats.
The chihuahua never learned to sit
and peed on my bathmat.
Metro House
Living with friends was fun,
But my dog couldn’t come inside.
So, I’d pat him on the back deck,
overlooking the neighbours’ garden,
a memorial to old Macedonia.
Real Estate 1
The real estate agent was too lazy
to fight me about
the bathroom mould,
that had always been there.
So, I got my bond back
quick smart.
Tropical Unit
Number 5 tenant told me
Number 3 tenant
smoked too much hydro
and didn’t come out much
anymore.
Real Estate 2
Hardcourts, the slimy cunts,
took us to QCAT
for 4 weeks’ rent and a lawn mow.
They left with half of that;
we left vindicated.
Tropical House (Settling)
On the website, the rental
looked like a Balinese retreat.
But in person,
it was a dodgy home job.
We took it anyway.
Can you see why I hate
security clearances?