VIVIAN HUANG
they tilted your world until it fell
the drowning cigarette sits pretty
curled in under your tongue,
singes your raw flesh until it bleeds, bleeds
rust, black, stars, but you
chuckle a little, tell me it’s fine, tell me
that’s how things are supposed
to be but you have blood leaking from your
arms & it draws on your bare feet
the rough soles that purée-d through the
pacific, hopped through the smoke
that lingers in the silverite walls of the
atlantis you & your wife built with
nothing but empty promises whispers
of heaven, angels, stacks of old cash,
tells you go back to your home, tells you
you don’t belong here, calls you
c-words f-words t-words, draws black white
portraits of you looking damn ugly,
doesn’t even get your name right on the
documents that throw you like
a limp meteor into burgeoning magma + stand,
smile + laugh + point fingers &
your cigarette burns through, crumbles like
ashes in your hands that bleed,
prune, wrinkle, curl over your heart at the
sight of red white blue even though
you have a different anthem but you whisper to me,
a little proud & jolly & golden, that
you’re already at home.
Vivian Huang is a Chinese-American high school poet from Irvine, California. Her work has appeared in the Road to Find, and Detester Magazine. She has also been recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. She is currently the senior poetry editor for her school’s literary magazine. When she isn’t writing, she loves playing Quordle.