In this city I’m wandering with ____

Keyi Wang, China

In this city I’m faraway
from WiFi. Not having a phone
wasn’t as bad. My mask
dances casually on my left
ear with its feet. When I
first opened my eyes nobody
wore a mask. What is it that
I have to conceal? The moon
reads my messages but doesn’t reply.
Juice is running out. I sit down
on the oily wooden chair,
staring at the steaming noodles,
afraid of picking up the chopsticks. They’re
made of wood. They’re wrapped
in plastic. Like that ban ana
that melted into a fi sh,
resting in the tape dispenser that also
happened to be yellow. When I was still
eleven they called me
mad. They were right — I’m relieved — for
the second time.

In this city I can’t reach
the bottom of my skirt. She blames
me for being stretched too long.
It’s constantly kissing
the messy ground and I constantly whisper,
stopflirting. It can’t hear me.
I’m her only
savior. A
drop of rain hits
my right elbow. Thunderstorms
are crossed out from my list of
“10 ThiNgs that Makes me Cry.” I can’t believe
my grammar has improved since —
excuse me, my memory has been bad since —
um. But anyways, my skirt breaks
up with everyone. It’s tired of answering
why it lives so long. My lips
stained with red. My teeth, yellower,
rip apart the next string of noodles. It tells
me somebody’s fate.

In this city I’m enabled to sit
beside my brother. They can all
recall how I poured orange juice on
his head when I was six.
They don’t know that his lashes
aren’t as long as
I remembered. If I ask him, he’ll say
that he doesn’t believe
in imagination. He wants
to use his hands
to send a salmon sushi into his
mouth & I stop
him. I force him to use
a new pair of chopsticks.
He asks me why
I changed.

In this city the horns speed
further ahead of the zebra crossing.
They’re grabbing
my hand and leading me
to the other end. They forget that I
don’t fall as often as before. They take me
there. He’s watching me and
them from the other
side. A door. Nadia, don’t
read my mind.

In this city they’re calling me
a foreigner. Our tongues
are now different. They’re laughing
awkwardly. I don’t understand how
they befriend
mosquitoes under the 10:26 night
sky. Five years ago they suffocated
a mouse that hid under the sofa
with a mop. The taxi
driver asks me where I’m from.
I say this is my hometown.
He asks me again.
I’m laughing awkwardly.

In this city the dog in their house
isn’t mine anymore. When he
barks I know that in his eyes
I’m black and white. He steps
on my skirt and hands
me his hands. Pink slips away from
his palm. Darkness ensues. They’re scolding him
for not being a good boy. When I say “again” I mean
I’ve carved both of his cries into my earrings. He’s
a man. There’s nothing
to apologize. He doesn’t even
lookatmeanymore. I don’t
feel my chest on the same level
as his eyes anymore. The noodles
aren’t steaming anymore.

Keyi, a high school sophomore in China, loves smelling books. She spent a lot of her time when she was a kid in her hometown—Chengdu—but as she gets older, she spends less and less time there. In her poetry, she often allows her creepy daydreams to overwhelm her and explores the feelings of social and self alienation.