reflections upon remembrance

Rue Huang, United States

i walked my dog today.

the air

is still warm,

but no longer summery.

pinpricks of autumn

poke holes in the sky

& make the stars spin

the wrong direction.

yet

fall is creeping in,

& i feel like

i can breathe again.

mountainloads of dirt

spiral down into dizziness.

you have low iron.

i have low iron.

my eyes hurt —

my friend said they were dry.

my brother called it “eye strain”,

he’s growing up

(not in a good way though.)

he thinks it’s

cool

& funny

to laugh when i’m

sad,

which,

frankly,

he laughs all the time now.

today i watched

travel videos to live vicariously,

&

it’s actually

pretty effective.

thank the inventors of the internet,

the World Wide Worshipers,

who spun it out of

logs & trees & stoneage pickaxes &

hearts made of gold, not pyrite.

i forget. it’s fool’s gold, anyway.

like minecraft, but worse.

why worse?

you ask.

real is always worse.

that’s why i’m

writing a poem about

someone like me

who doesn’t really exist

so i can feel

better

about being

real.

speaking of

real,

this morning

i was thinking

about trauma from past friendships.

i felt empty.

i feel empty.

the breeze floats past

my shoulders,

my soldiers,

my broken thighs

(untouching,)

tiny massacres upon the weight

of the world,

& my dog walks faster.

or maybe it’s just me.

i want school to start,

but I want summer

to last forever.

lazy mornings, endless days,

sugary watermelon juice dripping

down my chin. in a weird way,

i like it

when

heat & sweat crawl up

my

sour armpits.

but empty.

still empty.

Rue is a writer from the Mid-Atlantic. When she’s not writing introspective journal entries on bus rides, you can find her consuming her bodyweight in blueberries or running competitively. Her Instagram is @rue.huang.