In another life, I’m sure we’re two frogs on a leaf
for Nikita Reddy – may we remain friends for years to come
Rain, a couple nights ago, the sudden pelting against
rooftops after midnight. For three days in a row, I rinsed
nosebleeds under the bathroom sink, rhododendron thinning
into sunset pink. Before I went to sleep, my mouth tasted
like rust, and a chord of shallow matter struck beneath my ribs.
Before I woke, I could hear the clock ringing,
leaden circles of time scraping in the stale air. So many days leave
& leave; I am still blood. I’ve been told that everything reads like poetry
if you are silent for long enough. Once, I tried pulling the cough out
of my lungs, detaching my ribs, one by one, to see if I could count
my breaths pierced by unwanted deliverance. What I’m trying to
say is: sorry for that one afternoon, when the girl asked
if we were best friends. I looked up, emptied the water
from my throat, unspooling, whittling. Some life takes place
outside of everything, and at the hotel in the city, I watched a man
yell at the children waiting in line for the elevator. In my dreams,
one of them cried & I wanted home. In the city, I thought of you.
What I’m trying to say is: sorry I couldn’t answer her—I have never
belonged to anyone, any place in the world—yet I have this harsh need
to return to where I know. I have never accomplished anything in this life
other than the miles between my body to the next. I remember it;
there was enough light to seal gaps of years and years together.
一日三秋, three autumns in a sunrise, the first sunrise in three autumns. I miss you.
Yes, let the imagery head home. Yes, the light pins itself to your cheek.
& here is all the poetry I’ve read for life, all the poetry I will have for life.
Michelle Li has been nationally recognized by Scholastic Art and Writing, the Bennington Young Writers Awards, and Apprentice Writer. She is an alumna of the Kenyon Review Young Writer's Workshop and will be attending the Adroit Summer Mentorship. Her work is forthcoming or published in Aster Lit, wildscape. literary, and Third Wednesday. She is editor-in-chief of The Incandescent Review, executive editor of Hominum Journal, and edits for The Dawn Review. In addition, she plays violin and piano and loves Rachmaninoff and blackberries.