Chloe Chow
i.
come with me to the place where blood orange drips
from your lips and i wipe it away with two fingers and
three white teeth. where i may feel your scalp burn
beneath my palm. where i can see you in the
roaring light of day and it is nice. are you there?
can you see it? can you feel it? in the skin about your
fingernails? does it pain you as it does me?
ii.
i’ve found something. festering and bold. it imbues
my hands with what is unnatural. i would not
give that to you. i would not owe you that pleasure.
my eyes flit about their skull. there’s something there.
it pays me no heed. the fluorescence of entrapment
holds me still. there is nothing for me here,
between 3 am and giving up. what kind of death is this?
iii.
see that? i want to swim in it. she threads her fingers
between mine, whisks me away, spray against my cheek.
a thousand tons upon my chest. i can’t lay back. i can sleep.
i can. bones crunch and molecules cry out.
hmm. perhaps the flavor is off. my nails dig into the earth.
my blood exits through the fissures. i’m not strong enough
to pull myself out. you give me the final push (though i ask you
not to). there is only the heat, now. i am fried up and out.
i wish only that the vultures come sooner rather than later.
i’ve got places to be.
Chloe Chow is a freshman studying biology and religion. She enjoys badly named pets, fancy cheese, and the smell of the air at night. You can usually find her scrolling through Twitter, unfortunately.
