a scene from February of a rose by Sichen Li (16, China)

[Content warning: Body imagery]

in the night you can’t tell, 

‘is that noise a cat yelping  
or an unborn child?’ 

she likes to keep it hush to not wake the others.

---

go to sleep – 
we’ll know in the morning – ​

but i don’t know mornings, 
and i don’t until you’ve left for work 
or to the oncologist’s 
(i’d imagine this is a white place…)

when the sunlight spoils your flesh 
there’s some red bud on your chest 
& i tell you, 

​‘when my nails grow long and strong, 
i’ll pinch it off for you.’ 

​it’ll be scabbed, so let it scab, 
the night will kiss it and suck it raw, 
with the things it doesn’t say. 
it is good 

​but i keep biting them, i’m 5’5” and haven’t 
grown an inch since 14 because 
i listen to the night, not talking 

​i think you’re mad for letting your eyes shut, 
for listening to our walls that urge 
‘sleep’ 
and madder still for not asking about the child 
and letting the bud grow bigger, and redder 

​sometimes, when you slumber, 
i curl my fingers around it  
& i feel it

it syncopate 
it beat 
it swell like a 
grapefruit 

it live

its dew wet on my hand ​

and i can taste how bitter it must make you. 
​
and sometimes i forget your age – 
you say 

‘i want to do to you what 
the redbuds do, to the cicadas’ ​

what? 
–and you’ve aged so much. 
point at the disease and declare: 

‘this is where i carry my love, 
this is why it grows’ 

where? 

​you’re back at noon and wake me up

‘i love you’ ​

‘how’s the cancer?’