1 poem by Shirley Wang

HOW TO LIE IN WAIT WHEN YOU ARE TOO ALIVE TO BE A DEAD THING

 

i used to get so angry i would fist the screams from my throat like a magician's scarves. one after another after another, kitchen-knifing my mouth. a body's everyday violence gone nuclear. but now i am quiet. now i am a bell, hollow and clanging. my neck ringing with the weight of the silence in this house. i only make sound when inflicted upon, and i know there is so much that is wrong with this. i replace my mother with a steamer of rice and my father with the night shift. i study science instead of art. i conduct experiments:

1) murder the inside of my room with longing. 

2) hook my hands underneath my arms and ritual ritual ritual, shelling into something orange and terrible. go to sleep as monster, wake up as daughter in sheep’s clothing. hoping for her to notice the wrongness. 

3) send a rope and candle down the length of myself to see how far it can go before extinguishing. i count the minutes. i chime twelve o’clock. i am lying underneath my bed with a colorless knowledge, waiting for everything to go out. i listen for the rasping of the rope, the vastness of the god in the pit. there has to be a poison somewhere.