i. 

it’s not often when my chapped lips meet air that we share a kiss–one that reminds me of a previous lover. who? you may ask: the answer is none other than bleach. i stepped into the laundry room one day and prayed it would wash me white, just like it washed the peach american eagle sweatshirt i bought on sale the one time i shamelessly fed the big belly of capitalism. 

ii. 

i swing with playground chains in my fists in a kind of desperation once in a blood moon–napping away jersey summers i’ve lived, and awaking to the suzhou autumns i’ve only heard of, which held my parents captive between classroom walls until every one of their pencils snapped. mom took out her whitecast sunscreen on days the sun was at her peak, as ultraviolet rays lasered me bronze. 

iii.

we haven’t traveled beyond the familiar jersey interstates recently, but no place is possible when a hermited father only craves more of his untouched bookshelves weathering dust at every passing wind. it seems as if the moment i unzip my jansport there is always someone to remark on my scalp’s dandruff rug or the length of my fingernails.

iv. 

i’ve been handed everything with a fork already in my mouth. if i bite long enough, i will scratch the roof of my throat. which is the most accurate reason my stomach can tolerate everything but cafeteria ravioli. but i salivate knives at the thought of americanized orange chicken. 

v.

my family name is spoken like a curse by a “friend”; it tightens her jaw. i hope she fills in her fantasies of my world with erasable colored pencils. the fantasies of stinging scorpios, my pisces mom and pisces brother. 

vi.

but never once have i considered planet placements to be credible. but in black holes, the world sears into even my youngest of selves: a tooth-gapped girl who spilled tears over one boy’s cruelty towards someone else. who? someone who “forgot” to send her a birthday invitation. 

vii.

i’m now sixteen–no, seventeen, and terrors dissolve me like detergent. they soak the loads i throw into sideway buckets. i watch my uniform and pajamas wrap around formless bodies–each other. retrograde it is.