ghazal for a ghost
on my worst days, you could fill a black hole with the ashes that are no longer alive.
i mean that, on my worst days, i spit out my prayers and ask them to eat me alive.
i want to feel something tactile, and i don't care what it is. chase the shot with another.
whiskey then a .38 hollow point, both straight down the throat, both burning me alive.
there must be some lidocaine in my veins, and i could carve it out myself,
just like the way those train tracks under the bridge used to shake nerves alive.
but i flushed those blades and pills and cigs, and i don't skate much anymore.
i found an unholy hymn that all my lovers learn so they can sing me back alive.
when i reach for skin and breath, my hands find a headful of golden hair instead.
he knows how to hurt me in the ways i like, and tonight, i need to feel alive.
that the testaments to my personhood are shrouded in dust, in dead skin and smoke.
you could fill a bible or two with the shit i've done just to feel like i'm alive.
consequences don't come easy to me, and the few that do become ghosts, sighing cries.
you can't just tell me that you want it; you have to show me, prove that i'm alive.
By Ash Chen
Biography:
Ash Chen is a first generation Asian-American student at UNC Chapel Hill, where she majors in English with a minor in Music and another in Science, Medicine, & Literature. When she is not managing her campus responsibilities, she enjoys reading and writing queer literature/poetry, playing the electric bass, and sustaining injuries in mosh pits.
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