a hot pink blaze
by Ashley Wang
i want to collect your compliments like bookmarks—no, like little
ribbons, hanging in my hair. i can look up at the sakura trees in spring
and say hello, i know you. i’m in the habit of pocketing beauty as well.
i wonder what it’d be like to have your lip gloss on my shoulder.
would it be thin, sparkly? would there be any remnants after i let
water glide over it in the shower? would it shine like ever-gorgeous glass,
like those shards of snowglobe i caused after bringing my nerves
into your room?
this can’t go anywhere; when i want something too badly i start dreaming, and
the real thing dissipates in the fog of the dream. but i want to keep you, you know,
as you are, restless, oscillating, my fragile nighttime muse.
Ashley Wang (she/her) is a queer Chinese American poet currently living in Houston, TX and studying creative writing at Rice University. She is a poetry section editor for R2: The Rice Review. She participates in National Poetry Writing Month each year and likes to use it as a disjointed journal of sorts. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Stone of Madness Press and Eunoia Review.