Poetry
a very long line for a cup of hot chocolate, january 20th 2019, 12:18 p.m.
By Ana Chen
i chew my hair and laugh when i realize the
girls before me were taking selfies. i must’ve made it
into one or two, black locks between lips.
but why do i still cry when
you spit on me phlegm cradled tenderly
in elbows and knees sacrosanct
and i think about futility. there is a man next to me
cutting his croissant with a plastic knife, slivered almonds
spraying everywhere.
baba it’s so hopeless to talk to you yes
i skinned myself yes i wish you’d come home oh god
i am so ungrateful so undeserving
little boys squealing at acid salads, mothers burning
their tongues on lettuce and gossip, webbed hands thirsting
for a little more lotion, a lot more love.
pathetic i don’t know how
to draw eyebrows how to spin honey into
words and yogurt why must i hurt you
a study of the oversized: cinnamon
rolls, stomachs, my insecurities. i can’t stand
standing still – i count the raisins in a cookie.
didi it’s all my fault that you hate
and hide so much forgive my scorn and shame i wish
i had a million more words for you
the barista’s earrings glitter and i wonder
how it’d feel to pierce holes through skin and
silence, to dismember bone and whittle regrets.
come back bare those scars let me peel them
away clementine fragility let me kneel at the altar of your
weary blind cliches and drenched pillows weep me clemency
how many cups must we throw away in a day, enough
to build a castle? moats of cappuccino, croissant flakes
as flags – i giggle, get odd looks from customers.
mama i know you don’t like my eyeliner but
your side-eyes i ignore even this rebellion i am
ashamed of is this my wrong or yours
One twelve-ounce hot chocolate please, quarter sweetness, whipped cream.
Awesome, that’ll be three forty-five. Are you a member? To go or for here?
Yes I am, and for here please. I’ll be here a while.
if mahjong is porcelain thunder then your voice is the rain
that follows this storm might free or freeze me who knows but
i would gladly drown in it baptism in reverse so please
Oh nice, haha. Please wait over there.
talk to me and i will wait here as you
have waited for me patient and
Thank you! Have a good day.
boundless it is finally my turn. Nothing
would please me more.
You too, honey.
by Ana Chen
white
noise/
last night i willed
the viscera/from my womb/a
birth a death a hatching a/
mutation/and i stand a/
slope-shouldered reveler
in this miserable confetti/for
sale/forsaken/too
rashly raised sail/too blindly
set sail.
– suffocating
but no/i
should not stray/so far so deep/
into these uncharted lands/and
sometimes i laugh/imagining/
cartographers finding my
body here/ink bubbling
from ribboned red fingers/flesh anointed
and shredded and pathetic/this grave holy
ground/a monument/a love letter to/
this witchcraft gruesomeness to/
these wallowing thoughts to/
this still water to/
this hemlock which i/
so eagerly
sip.
– murmuring
beneath/this scintillating
sludge a marlin floats bloated/
belly up.
funny how/even the vultures
are silent.
– hallowing
& i know/they watch
this rotting
skin/these hourglass
sins/this rate of
decay/these twisted
derivatives –
fin
– paranoid/i
scream silent/
stuffed/slashed and/
splintered. & still/
they watch me: eyes
blind/eyes
glassy/eyes
hungry/eyes
white.
A Canvas of Nostalgia in Shades of Sepia
By Andrea Liao
I am nostalgic for a time I’ve never known.
Remembering is an
evasive shadow; if you let it slip
through your fingers,
it’s gone. And you’ll find that
gone means it’s
never coming back.
I would know.
The remains of you are so far gone.
I fill in the spaces that used to be filled with you:
I transform my tears to ichor,
(They burn away my cheeks and my pain)
I morph your words into echoes,
(They cover up the silence that is your absence)
I sacrifice the memory of you to oblivion.
(The numbness spreads like a stain)
Forgetting becomes me like a second skin.
Do you remember
the time I held my breath
underwater so long you thought
I had drowned?
(I do.)
I remember
the lake water clinging
to your eyelashes, the wild look
on your face as you pulled me up by the hair;
I imagine that’s how I’ve looked ever since you left.
(I know.)
I told you afterwards
that I had seen a mermaid beckoning, and
you told me you believed me. But later, you said to
my mother that it was just another “episode.”
(I heard.)
And now I’m
beginning to think
that if you had ever believed
in me at all, you would never have left.
You left me so now I never reminisce about you.
I dream of real
things, real
memories, real
people, real
places, real
but all of it leaves
just as easily as a picture
passing through its frame,
losing grip of memory
in its sepia-tinted haze.
How much farther must I go to unsee you?
Sometimes
I wonder
if the
forgetting
is because
we never were. Or
because I’ve let myself
drown too far
in the depths
of nepenthe.
Maybe if I dive deep enough, I’ll see you again.
That’s why I capture the euphoria
in a bottle and save it to get high
on later. But high is never enough,
you see, it can only descend from here,
spiraling downwards until rock bottom.
How much higher to make you disappear?
A scar mars my skin
from the time we decided
to hike until everything
familiar began to look
very small. It lingers
on my collarbone
in the shape of a heart,
marking the touch
of your fingers, as if
even my body knows
what you meant to me.
You see that pain is really all I have left of you.
In the past few years,
I’ve learned this:
People are always leaving.
In the past few months,
I’ve learned this:
You don’t have to let them go.
Break me apart until all that’s left is you.
Now I know
that it’s never good to care
too much,
just as I’ve always been told
that it’s never good to see
too much;
it makes everything and everyone
all the harder to forget.
But if I go
through life
feeling nothing,
will it be as if—?
I
never
existed
at
all
by Anonymous
rain flowed down my face
as thunder crashed from your lips:
my earth, desolate.
now spring green blooms around me
your storm echoes distantly
- anonymous
by Anonymous
i dig under my nails, carve
little white coves
beneath the cartilage.
odds & ends
catch in there: shells
of nail polish, barnacles
of dried blood, driftwood
& dirt. these souvenirs
of battered buoys, these tributes
to tired anchors, these pieces
of this sleepless soul: like sea glass,
they tumble seamlessly
to shore.
by Chaim Durst
For over a year I’ve been wearing
Broken glasses.
I just didn’t care
How I saw the world or how
The world saw me. I had the letter
All written out,
Addressed to my son, and the pills nicely
Stashed away.
Then, you broke through the haze.
You told me it didn’t matter what I did,
Or what condition I was in.
I was lovable nonetheless.
So, I tore up the letter,
Flushed the pills,
And
Got myself a new pair of glasses.
by Chaim Durst
Bag the IV,
Put the opiates on ice
A lifetime of pain
Should more than suffice.
Read the EKG
One last time.
I don’t need a doctor
To give me back my rhyme.
I will arise and go now:
My spirit’s been set free.
It’s time to doff this faded gown
And claim the best of me.