CHIU-YI RACHEL NGAI
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Beautiful in Neon, Red and White
I force the ocean into my room, lighting candles until
my nose is numb.
Cerulean Surf and Sea, Mediterranean Breeze,
Linen Sheets Infused with Fresh Ocean Air,
Waterside Vacation, Sex on the Beach.
They lied. They smell like geraniums. Citrus.
Strawberries and pears. Teakwood and coconut.
The stale wine I drink in the dark to sleep
without dreams.
I light my candles like it’s the night before Mid-Autumn,
wax on my fingers and fire in my nose, chili pepper
flames. As white girls on TikTok shove garlic bulbs
into their sinuses, I play Cantopop and try to tame Mazu.
She drowns me. Her disgraced daughter. Holy
Heavenly Mother. Holy Mother. Holy Mary,
Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at
the hour of our death.
Deaths, five million of them worldwide, each one
my fault. White girls clear their noses on TikTok
just to turn them up at me, the yellow menace, the chink bitch
who brought the Covid to our beautiful country.
Fresh off the boat. A girl in my school follows
me around. I’m from Hong Kong. Close enough
to Korea. She gives me a card on Chingming
Festival. Gong hei fat choi, written in red colour
pencil on white paper.
I pinch stars into the back of my hand. Twist
the skin until it breaks. Red, like Chinese
New Year and luck. White for death, morning robes.
Where’s the lucky third? I carry blue in
finger-shaped bruises from grocery stores and gas stations.
Cantonese falls from my lips. My eyes burn. In
dreams that hurt in the morning, I can speak. The
pawn shop air. Blood candle wax. How much for
the smell of saltwater?
Chiu-yi Rachel Ngai (she/her) is a high school student from Hong Kong. Currently studying in Arkansas, she works closely with Footnotes, her school’s award-winning literary magazine, and with SeaGlass Literary, Intersections Magazine, and Project Said. She is the winner of Rider University’s 41st High School Short Story Writing Contest and the Senior High Sybil Nash Abrams Memorial Poetry Contest. She is also the Arkansas Scholastic Press Association’s 2022 Literary Magazine Writer of the Year. Her work can be found in Words and Whispers, Blue Marble Review, and Cathartic Youth Literary Magazine among others.