by Lauren Ho
Art by Sharlene Chen
Issue: Phosphene (Summer 2019)
You placed in my hand,
The petals of rouge,
I,
a fetid piece of death,
I thought I would roam the fields,
Burgeoning breasts like the seeds of life,
Mutual contusions on our flesh,
Who am I to turn flush,
as my body is drowned by its own blood,
My dilated pupils remind my mother of her pain,
Reflected in her eyes,
To stand behind me with her eyes ahead,
Pain is paralleled in both
Life and Death,
The poppy and the pill,
Why are they intertwined,
If one is meant to be beautiful,
To be nothing but admired,
With skin the color of gold and
Not jaundice,
But I wanted a release,
To open the bottle whose cap I had closed,
Fingers to pry the sepal from the stigma,
I needed someone to affirm that what I was doing was
in accordance of addiction.