report
recently there have been / so many emergencies / around here / it is hard to have a full
conversation / without having to worry about / what i don’t know how to worry about / the
sirens wake me up / steal from me / each hour that i am trying / and i find myself /
unsure of what all these interrupted narratives / could mean / they were hard enough to
interpret / at the psychic’s
it has been hard / recently / to walk outside / i am not certain enough of / myself to be
seen / quite like that / by people i do not know / i am trying to figure out / what it is i am
selling / and how to price it / in a way which does not / insult the buyers / i am not sure if
such a price exists
in a room / where i can’t close the blinds / even when changing / i fear i could not open
them / back up / i have an album of thoughts / hooked up to car alarms / strung on
smoke detectors
i found a paper cut yesterday / even if i sold it / i am not sure i would hear anything / not
here
all the tall buildings near me
my mother wants to buy a gun
she says our faces will be hated
she keeps imagining
someone breaking in to kill us all
my mother wants to buy a gun
what if i hate my face already
can i say that out loud
most of the cruelty i know
is towards myself. my mother
wants a gun but in the end
we refrain—a fantasy purchase—
a peculiar form of love.
i admit that it still leaves me
lonely now without a scapegoat
without my mother wanting a gun
how many things can i worry about
and is it okay if i am one of those things
i know the correct answer to
though i cannot say it to myself
and—peculiar form of love—mean it
Biographical Note: Xiadi Zhai is a senior at Harvard College in Cambridge, Massachusetts studying chemistry, physics, and comparative literature.