Dear, is it worth it? By Sara Chow
Is it worth it?
To be killed so softly with
tender touch, your nails
grounded into the skin of my neck and
lips pressed against the same areas
minutes later.
Heart used, chewed up, rebuilt
from a base of synthetic sweet nothings.
What becomes of life with the absence
of an arrow in my back?
Growing up, love has always been the box
wrapped with a bow,
sat in the corner of my room until my next birthday; unopened.
Untouched.
I never bothered with it; it never bothered me.
But still, it followed.
Love came in the form of fingers sticky
with glue
and scrap paper, rose petal pages
piled along a shelf,
in the liquor of a red solo cup
on a kitchen counter; it’s not mine.
It was found in reheated leftovers
packed carefully
for school lunch and films
that flashed across a screen while we laughed.
I watched, looked at love
through rose coloured lenses,
waited with bated breath for a romance
to call my own,
only to understand nothing.
Love was always marriage,
passionate kisses under sheets,
being cuddled tight to each other.
It was never seen as kind looks and hands
clasped together in the hallways
not because we were together, but
because we could.
So this love, I mean, is it worth it?
I can’t help but crave the intimacy that comes
with the devouring of a soul,
to twist the lining of my stomach into knots
as we bump shoulders.
But why would I need to,
want to, carve
space beside my heart and
leave a gaping hole
for you
to rest in?
To have to hang the stars
just to get you
to look at me?
I want you
but not in the way you want me to;
not in the way I can have you.
I do love.
I love my parents, my friends,
I love the boy in my grade at school
who always smiles and waves
at me in the hallway.
I love the birds who sing
on my walks around the block,
the crunch of leaves in fall and the chill
of winter that bites at my neck.
(I cried when I lost the cat
I had grown up alongside;
stared at the plaque added to
the polished marble, my grandfather's name
inscribed in the metal.
I learned of what lies beyond a fairytale
end and bands tied to the heart.)
I love, am constantly in love; it’s a privilege
to be.
I swam through a life submerged in it’s passion,
drowned,
found it in mall trips and
the plush lining of stuffed animals, backyard
fires and sugar coated
hands, banter between lectures.
In all it’s unconventional , unconditional, distance
and lack of roses,
this love is mine.
It’s worth it.
A Painter’s Advice to Himself when He Loved Her Most By Jenny Chen
Falling
To start a painting, first you must love.
Love the idea, spend nights dreaming of it.
It will be the last thing you think of before you sleep,
And the first when you wake up.
Confession
When the idea consumes you,
When it torments your every waking hour,
And continues through to your dreams,
When it becomes the breath in your lungs,
Until you cannot continue living without it,
Then you know it’s time to start the painting.
First Date
Building the canvas can be strenuous,
But take your time, enjoy the process,
You want to get to know it,
Never start a painting with a bad canvas,
It is, after all, what you’ll be stuck with
Whether you like it or not,
So make sure you like it, really like it,
The canvas has a few crooked edges,
The left corner is chipped,
The material is cheap and absorbs too much paint,
But how much could it affect the painting?
First Kiss
The first stroke is always the hardest.
The white of the canvas can be daunting,
So easily ruined by a bad first stroke.
But once you start,
You’ll find that in a composition of a million,
The first is quite forgettable.
The first stroke is hard,
But knowing which stroke should be the last is harder,
Remember to not overpaint.
First Fight
You’ll make a mistake, inevitable,
A bold stroke that steered the painting off course.
It’ll fight back, be ready for it,
For a while none of your strokes will help,
The painting won’t let you fix it,
So take a step back,
And come back to it with fresh eyes.
You should apologize, |
But don’t expect one back,
It is but a painting of course.
Last Chance
At some point you’ll get lost in the strokes,
You won’t be able to make out which are bad,
Which are good,
And which are just there to cover the bad ones.
As a painter,
Your purpose is to create beauty in the world.
So when something you create becomes ugly,
Your instinct is to repaint it down to its bones
Until it becomes an entirely different being,
A beautifully different being.
But some paintings were destined to be ugly.
Breakup
The lines blur between you and the painting,
And the you that you’ve become because of the painting,
And the painting that has become because of you,
And you’ve forgotten if you’re the painting the painting,
Or if the painting’s painting you.
It’s easy to ignore tears and rips in the canvas,
When up close they are simply just tears and rips.
But if you step back, you may find
That together they’ve made an irreparable gash,
Then you know it’s time
To scrap the painting.
aubade with disbelief by Angel Zhao
someone tells me that I cannot save this world: deadly Idalia hits Florida,
more of US at risk. drought in Canada causes world pasta prices to soar.
& 5M bees fall off a truck. cannot hold
5M bees in my hands like cherry stems, pits
punctuating the silence of the pre-dawn. something
is hurting here again. hurting is so close. praying into
a sky no one really believes in. some thing is in the sky:
look up! this lifetime of asking&hunting&being is falling
from the sky! & maybe it feels like dying, the sweaty creasing
as the seasons fold into themselves, full of trembling emptiness &
touch. we touch like a crackling god in a vacant church, all gold
lacquer & empty pockets, maybe this should feel like dying.
I know the years pass through the breeze like bees
through a wind chime, the simple sound of their vaulted bodies,
the ghosts that we carry, the blackberry juice I mistook
for blood you drew. the white-tailed deer is the most hunted big-
game species in the United States. the white-tailed are fast learners.
maybe their star-spotted eyes never close in the dark,
maybe the bodies of water become their mothers.
this deer-in-headlights has been felled a thousand times. all my life,
I held onto the hurt because I believed in miracles. I cannot
save this world, but I will recover.
Excuse Me By Emma Sengotta
My male friends once accused me of
ruining one of his friendships.
I said, “Excuse me?”
Then I yelled at him.
I told him that I had no say in what had happened
and the ruined friendship was due to
their inability to communicate.
He told me I was being emotional.
Excuse me?
I listen to him complain about his life
and his “problems” everyday,
And never have I ever called him emotional.
I just nod and tell him that his problems
are bad habits and they can be solved.
I haven’t yelled since and neither has he.
When a man yells there is always a reason.
A good logical reason.
When I yell? It is chalked up to emotions and
“that time of the month”. I can’t open my mouth
without some man having a problem with it,
but excuse me for calling you out when you
oversexualize teenage girls. Excuse me for not
being nice when you tell me you unadded someone
cause they aren’t “pretty enough”. Excuse me for covering
Up my body when i walk past a group of men, because
we live in a society where rape culture is a thing.
Excuse for not believing that it should be. Excuse me
When i cringe at everything you say, but never correct you
Because girls are meant to be polite and interrupting
is just going to make me unattractive to you.
And excuse me if I don't give a damn if you think I'm attractive.
I don’t want you to oversexualize me to your friends. But you will.
Because you're a big strong man and I'm a small little girl.
I am nothing and you? You are everything.
You can say whatever you want. Excuse me, I would love to call you out,
but who am I to say anything?