waves
Time [was/is/will be] measured by
enjambments. The creases in between. The silence more telling
than our articulations. Sinking
acidity. Waking up and falling into dreams with the same emotional
density. On repeat.
You break the routine
by noticing and grappling on to the nouns that hide in deceiving corners of the eye.
Found,
vintage fans in another tinted decade. When the tingly anticipation of
damp, neon streets awaited
complacency. Somewhere with more commas
and without me.
Pruned inners
stand the testaments
of function, eager to reproduce relief.
Pity is an emotion that bites. It leaves with markings.
Markings that transform underneath the skin.
That time I spent three hours hand-cleaning clothes; edges
of my fingers wrinkled up,
revealing the patterns of my lineage.
You worship sulfuric soaps like God
they scrape off the redundancies and mishaps.
Remind you of the true taste of
existence
by invading your skin.
Your taste buds. Fruit plates every afternoon, clocked at 16:00.
Remnants of labor, salt crunches, a national past you shove away behind closed doors under the
laundry pile.
If time was truly measured by the taps
of water, it must have been infinite
Only the skin peels up, morphing the rough borders.
Until that one day
I dream of holding your lifeless hand,
and tracing back to find the same waves to your heart.
Wishing, with one last prayer, to find you ashore.
enjambments. The creases in between. The silence more telling
than our articulations. Sinking
acidity. Waking up and falling into dreams with the same emotional
density. On repeat.
You break the routine
by noticing and grappling on to the nouns that hide in deceiving corners of the eye.
Found,
vintage fans in another tinted decade. When the tingly anticipation of
damp, neon streets awaited
complacency. Somewhere with more commas
and without me.
Pruned inners
stand the testaments
of function, eager to reproduce relief.
Pity is an emotion that bites. It leaves with markings.
Markings that transform underneath the skin.
That time I spent three hours hand-cleaning clothes; edges
of my fingers wrinkled up,
revealing the patterns of my lineage.
You worship sulfuric soaps like God
they scrape off the redundancies and mishaps.
Remind you of the true taste of
existence
by invading your skin.
Your taste buds. Fruit plates every afternoon, clocked at 16:00.
Remnants of labor, salt crunches, a national past you shove away behind closed doors under the
laundry pile.
If time was truly measured by the taps
of water, it must have been infinite
Only the skin peels up, morphing the rough borders.
Until that one day
I dream of holding your lifeless hand,
and tracing back to find the same waves to your heart.
Wishing, with one last prayer, to find you ashore.
About the Author
Churan Xu is a 17-year-old student writer born in Shanghai, China. She has lived in the Middle East before attending The Lawrenceville School. Constantly inspired by the confluence of cultures, she wrote nonfiction works alongside cultivating a passion for bilingual poetry. She is the managing editor of Living Chronicles and the founder of AMPLIFY, an interdisciplinary space combining viewpoints of music, writing and anthropology. Her work has been recognized by the Black Warrior Review. She also loves baking, painting, and aimlessly wandering unexplored cities.