Blood & Bone
A poem by Vanessa Chen
what are we but bones and the caves they inhabit? how our fat hugs our bloodlines as if they were a precious thing, every typhoon folds our skin in like laundry —because sundays are for tidying, how CPR fractures the ribs and compression stops the bleeding. sometimes i dream that i can outlast the wind, but i remember i am a girl. a good girl, gracious girl, girl who hangs sins up to dry on the clothing line —because sundays are for tidying. who do i tell when i feel girlhood ticking away between my thighs, or watch as other girls wallow in a sea of their mothers’ wet sins? please, let me soften the roadkill for you, i’ll pleat the wreckage into paper cranes like the way i was taught when i was still somebody’s daughter. give me a mouth so i can plead to the moon, teeth to shred the sky into quarters, so that there is less space to fall down from. & if there is still nothing i can outlive, then dig me a grave and let me call it my own, maybe then my bones can carry the world on their back.
stunning!