mind and body

by annie wu

photo by joanna chung

a learning process

vendors with sidewalk chalk/ they sell you love with a rainy forecast/

tell me it does not hurt to watch the warmth wash away/ in the night, 

they charge double for the stars/ supernova potential cuts pockets of

light into space/ the dark swallows them whole by dawn/ why

does love always sound like a farewell/ that kind of mourning and grief

at first sight/ self-love comes harder than loving others ever did/

harder than buying love from others/ self-love is working

graveyard shifts and overtime to be okay with being yourself/ it is thankless

and aching and maybe, just maybe, worth it.

space is silent and so are we

if silence starts where fear starts,

what ends in the wake of their birth?

do you feel loss or does a star blink out, 

barely breathed but a story so old we 

almost 

forget it matters.

when does expendability suddenly

 fit the definitions of society’s acceptability, i wonder

if we trapped a star in glass is it more likely

to combust and turn inside out, supernova brilliance

burned behind our eyes

maybe it’s hiding a black hole, starving:

It must hurt to be confined and forced

to fall into yourself and 

is it aching tiredness, exhaustion hidden behind

the taste of burning metal; an iron core seeping far enough 

into your bones to 

let your body finish the job.