UNTITLED— SARA FANG

SELECTED POEMS — ROJIN SHIRWAN

Melodie is a queer Chinese American woman.

My Girlfriend Whose Name I Dont Know

The strobe lights turn my eyes inside out. The splatter of rolled ankles and flat sweaty backs mark the air. A nervous girl screams, her eyes fleeting back and forth among the mass-covered bodies.The clock clicks another and loosens its grip until all the time has run out and w e are left sitting on a cold metal Montreal bus stop, bladders full. I flew that night, my feet didn’t reach the ground until your arms caught my flat back and the loose collateral of split ribbon black buttons embraced the dented floor. Glimpses of your hand move with mine, our eyes shielded and all I feel is your hot breath. Your name rests forgotten on my tongue and I know mine on yours. Perhaps I’ll never see your black box hair dye except in the eerily similar tones with other girls mouths. And you don’t speak french the way I do, but in men’s eyes, we are the same. And I’ll never hear you laugh again, but all I wrote from that night........as i sit under the stoned montreal moon smoking shitty canadian cigarettes...

Vest broken Hot girl gave me her pin Now i’m her girlfriend.

When you hold my hand, I want to die. A confuddled muddled-up mess of emotions spark from your hand that causes my short-circuited brain to hardwire.

Slam that splintered wood door on my peach jam hands. Ask me the question, I dare you.

I’m sick of flirting in morse code, always tiptoeing.

Tell me what I am to you, I dare you.

I am unmedicated, free pg. 25 range. The eggs in my fridge age by another day, their golden orange yolk becomes more muted to fade into that sickly yellow. Those muffled eggshells shatter under the weight of your unspoken words. I wish I could make you listen to the crunch over and over again.

I’m not proud of me. I write confessions in a TJ Maxx discounted black book.

The dull thud of my empty head rings loud on this Chicago bus. You pull the red string.

Released from your hold, my hands pulse from the sweltering heat.

Empty orange pill bottles haunt my dreams. Your touch clicks open the white plastic lid of the blackhole squatting in my mind.

The joints in my right big toe don’t fit together like a puzzle piece, my doctor told me, “that’s why you’re in pain.” I almost cry in relief, “so there is pain, it’s real.” So typical for my deeformed joints to never fit together. No cure for me or you, my pain is a little bump on thoseshitty Ann Arbor sidewalks.

300 miles away from you blaring beeps from a passing by Blue Bus fill me with nostalgic joy.

I can smell my panic attack fostering in my empty single baby blue or was it teal iron pill stomach. “What’s wrong with you,” you ask me with those endearing eyes.

I flashback to that dark room with my bowl of cherries and blurry vision. I sigh and sigh. I love sighing, it’s so relieving. I wish I knew what I wanted to say. I wish I knew I wish I knew that you knew I wish I knew what I knew I wish I knew I wish I knew how to count inside I wish

I knew I wish I knew sooner rather than later I wish I knew I wish I knew I wish I could tell I wish I knew I wish I knew that I didn’t like you I wish I knew I wish I wasn’t so lonely because loneliness distorts my emotions I wish I knew wish I knew how to tell the difference between love and a distraction I wish I knew I wish I knew oh how I truly wish I knew.

Jellyfish

My hair springs back to life here.

The air settles down easier in my lungs here.

I am meant to be here. But my mother says no one else in my family has ever been like me.

BUT my body resides here (meant to be), but my heart cannot.