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I. Unfiltered

after Ross Gay’s “Bringing the Shovel Down”

The pavement we drive on flowers with cul-de-sacs and yellow,

white seams. They lure drooling eyes toward the elusive dream.

My family moves to a house with a garden surrounded by a white picket fence.

Neighborhood lilacs grow along the sidewalk and robins perch in the hackberry tree.

The girl next door, blonde and forgettable, comes over to eat with me.

She says something about my food stenching and then goes back home.

I beg my parents for Lunchables instead of egg rolls, watch a part of me flay.

She comes back, forgetting the smell and with a bright pink hula-hoop.

She and I learn to move our hips for a brunette boy, who, like the other kids,

mistakes my eyes for the buttonholes in my moth-eaten flannel.

She and I learn to forgive when only one of us gets the boy,

while the other sells herself to the study of how bodies adapt to environments.

As I walk home from school, the sultry evening air engulfs me,

and I sink into the pot-holed roadway and stare.

Her house still seems sweet and swirly: brushstrokes from The Starry Night.

My house sits under the shadow, molding itself with cookie-cutters to fit in.

That night, I decide to rearrange the constellations to map a different life.

That night, I marinate under my stolen stars...

II. Filtered

after Ross Gay’s “Again”

The pavement we drive on flowers with cul-de-sacs and yellow,

white seams. They lure drooling eyes toward the American dream.

My family moves to a house with a garden surrounded by a white picket fence.

Neighborly lilacs grow along the sidewalk and robins perch in the hackberry tree.

The girl next door, blonde and unforgettable, comes over to eat with me.

She says something about my food while salivating, wide-eyed.

I try her Lunchables while she nibbles at my egg rolls, watch our laughter replay.

She often comes back, forgetting her curfew and with a bright pink hula-hoop.

We learn to move our hips for a brunette boy, who, like the other kids,

welcomes me into their woodchip empire: slides, swings, monkey bars too.

We learn to forgive when only one of us gets the boy,

since the other discovers herself in the study of how countries reach peace.

As we walk home from school, the crisp evening air embraces us.

We settle ourselves along the pot-holed roadway and stare.

Our houses seem sweet and swirly: brushstrokes from The Starry Night.

We watch shadows bubble up into the sky then burst into kaleidoscopes.

That night, I decide to spin a web of constellations into a dreamcatcher.

That night, I marinate under my seemingly real stars.

growing pains

when i wake, my body unfolds

from under my c-shaped spine.

light spills over me like syrah wine.

mother says this is an omen.

the next day, my breasts swell like honeydew,

hips becoming sunken valleys and canyons.

mother says cover up.

i leash time with a collar like a dog,

arch my back like a question mark.

mother says stop slouching.

slick convoluted memories

stream out of my pores,

vermillion puddles flowering.

i don't know how to stop it.

mother says quit making a mess.

my body is licorice thick, so

i fray myself into a thin rope.

mother says that’s not enough.

i dig a hole in my stomach,

grow a pumpkin from my roots.

mother says i’m not ripe.

my paper skin wrinkles

into a simian frown.

my hair now wisps gray.

mother is no longer here to say anything.

Yellow Redefined

Where the snug sun is skintight like a shoe,

where yolk sizzles on sidewalks, unsubdued,

Arizona isn’t aware of how it sears and steams.

Yet sixteen years I’ve lived here,

and for sixteen years, I’ve survived.

In this state, I’m taught to love the shade,

where chiaroscuro echoes like a chorus,

and colors crouch in a corner, too afraid,

to the point where darkness won’t fade.

Before my parents came to the USA,

they passed down a color called yellow,

conveyed as cold and cutthroat.

Note that this yellow isn’t in line with the

perpetual sunshine of the state I populate.

This yellow is what Google defines as

cowardly and wimpy and weak.

In history, I’m taught that yellow is immoral.

Yellow-dog contract says yellow is overbearing.

Yellow fever says yellow is sickening.

Yellow journalism says yellow is exaggerating.

In history, I’m taught to hate yellow.

Even in ordinary scenes,

society sees yellow in screams,

that yellow stoplight yells slow down,

that Snapchat’s yellow logo yells see me,

that McDonald’s yellow arches yell eat me.

In society, I’m taught to not yell like yellow.

Yet here I am yelling.

I’m ashamed to have wished

for white to wash over my flesh.

And I’m ashamed to have shut

the harsh reality to a shush.

But I am not ashamed of yellow.

Because yellow is the emoji that smiles back,

the lightbulb that brightens up the night,

the pencil that scribbles the day away,

the largest star in the sky guiding with light.

Yellow is warmth, and

Yellow is hope, and

Yellow is power, and

Yellow I reclaim.

calculated survival

the midnight sky’s milky eyes stare at the pulsing moon,

waning like a sickle cell, white flesh dribbling out of its voids.

follow the power lines to a shuttered window downtown:

a boy flickers psychedelically, as if he’s out of breath.

his strobing lamplight curdles his scribbles into shadows

as he scrapes together mottled pennies for his utility bills.

while the fan whizzes overhead, buffering like a video game,

the boy surrenders another sleepless night to the moon.

as he bows down, sending another prayer to be unanswered,

he listens to the warbling tick of the clock taunt him like a bully.

behind chafed lids, his cavernous eyes echo his weeping, tears

forming pockmarks in his cheeks like moon craters set abloom.

he wishes he could multiply numbers to make himself feel infinite,

but the calculator only divides until hollow digits rupture and bleed.

he knows nothing adds up to a sum that accurately counts

these nights, so he continues to unspool himself threadbare.