last train by Yun-Fei Wang (15, Taiwan)*

[Content warning: self-harm]

​and as the last train approached the station,
i thought i saw her in the blur of people–
 
chipped nail polish and a leather watch,
bubblegum lipstick smeared by city lights 
 
beneath the ground, time slipped away
the only sky was the depths of her eyes
 
i thought i saw her in a ripped-up dress
champagne gold the station almost felt real

---

    in the first life my thoughts were wild
    believing you were paradise on earth
 
    and i could only dream of a world where
    underneath velvet white veils your smile
 
    stays, even when you know i obsess
    over the sugary gleam of your lipstick
 
    and how your eyes enchant skies into
    ombre sunsets in a colorless world
 
    you made me believe in heaven
    hologrammed by your pastel voice
 
    before your ring with his initials and
    a date years ago scratched me when
 
    your fingers laid against my skin
    a crescent scar that would never heal
 
    and now i feel your touch on me
    haunted, even when i'm sober
 
my fingernails dug into my train ticket,
locations unknown, without a time of arrival.
 
through misted windows i saw her silhouette
light blended into darkness i couldn’t breathe
 
the back of her hand pressed against the window,
her head slumped restless in her palm unmoving;
 
firm, slender fingers entangled with waves of
soft black hair scattered on her stiff shoulders;
 
    in the last life i needed you most
    but all i was left with was silence
 
    of late nights lost in empty bottles
    once overflowed with your soft voice
 
    echoing the melancholy of loneliness
    sounded like glass panes shattering
 
    until your name suffocated every star
    but for you i’d take all my last breaths
 
    as blades sharpen blood on my skin
    drowning in pain from your soft glances
 
    the lines of colors you’d never read
    every lifetime wishing i could be yours
 
     i reached to grasp for one last chance
    to only be devoured by hollow darkness
 
    never thought i’d see you in this world
    and now i’m at the edge of insanity
 
in the crests and valleys of her chiseled clavicle
i found the faded answers to endless moments of
 
all these lives and the coldness i’d suffocate for.
on the station display was no longer today’s date
 
and now the air entangled with blood, i held back
my tormented heart from boarding onto the train
 
the ticket slipped from my fingers onto the tracks,
just as her last train drifted away from time–

​