Something Scintalizing About S
?
Narrative Free-Verse by Cen Xinyan (Crystal)
Illustration by Jovie Ho
Something about erupting momentum
of ruptured silences, utter startling
and cruel to my horror of confrontation–
a knock–Mom offers apple slices; disruption, still I glared at the
stretching hemming, wavelike yarn, I detect: parallel to my out-curved
waist. Warning: Failure of accentuating, detaching n! o! w! Tranquility,
leaned-front weighted shoulder; phase one–back to naked nothings.
I glared, imperceptible expression; Mom rushed-I-hurried-to
Survey the nemesis–
Who so dastardly magnified the cracked fragility.
Plenty stances of wrecked illustrations, the escalating
concern of fancy features–everyone is at the door-dressed
“So the younger one eats more–I assume?” regular investigations
renovate me a celebrity of shameful fame–chuckles, chuckles in concert
in which I continue to orchestrate, “Nothing, nothing, Mom!”–
semi-squatting–front of the white circular toilet bowl; “On my way!”
Screw those apple slices, anyways. The sick, cursing–
pretentious bloatation pilots my attention to calculation: complex
contemplation and condemning of “what-if-I Didn’t/s”–save me, I beg;
silence–Mom disrupts my ritual–Are you ready??? I am a rotten one-I swear.
Salient blot–doesn’t matter, nowhere seen–I don’t own a single inch of spectaculars
Splash me opaque like a blank canvas–urgent protocol: Evaporate me! Evaporate me!
Slaps work better than morning alarms; spike and sabotage–I’m nauseous–see,
S, being S is brilliant–I promise, trust me.