dinner with best friend

Ava Clare Ng, Singapore

as you peel the batter off fried fish you notice

they start doing the same. you stare

into the remaining white flesh, mostly unbroken,

like your body extracted from boots, clothes,

for the mouth of a scale. you want to say

it’s okay, wrap the oily crispy gold

back for them like draping a coat

over shivering arms, and it feels like

staring into a mirror, wishing you could

bend light, shift the contours sitting across you

into a reflection that doesn’t scare. you

are scared of making them feel worse. would rather

save that cross-examination into tremulous eyes

only for the guilty. so you tell them

you are getting seconds, and standing up

is like squatting with an ocean for a barbell.

you suspect they only followed for you, so

just to be safe you dab grease off your chicken

only when they aren’t looking, swallow

the watered-down soup and feel it blistering through.

it’s ten more minutes on the treadmill for this, and like bodies

flipping into each other in an hourglass

you wish they’d at least tell you how they feel,

empty themselves to you for some extra weights.

you try not to look back after a hug goodbye.

you know where you’re headed. you

convince yourself they’ll make it home safe.

Ava Clare Ng (she/they) is a writer, anthropologist, and community organizer living in singapore. she loves vintage floral silks and fresh morning breeze after rain. their work was previously anthologized by fifth wheel press.