The Writer's Bloc

Elaine Hsiang


Skin
tells me that men are brutes
on islands we wrap sex in sandy towels hoping our tans are beautiful

Prisoners are beautiful.
Repeat words of guilt and learn
what a conscience means without metal bars
metal bars we so desperately hold,
my skin hurts
when it’s too much, my blood
spills metallic ink
Skin forgets how to forgive
and I am stung

Soon:
revisit the beaches
wait for tomorrow’s false sunrise
rub these bites from the mosquito that is four hundred and twenty five miles away and my

Skin
will teach me that I am human again.

Above, the sky began to blur,
polished black glass
and diamonds.
 
I strain
to remember you.
 
Submerged in the recollection
of our days,
layered upon each other,
assembled by rote and cemented
in repetition.
 
It turns, then, to memories
back lit by sun and stars and
sad waning cries of
agitated sounds .
 
I swore I would not let this
fade away.
 
Colored pictures
always pale, you said,
and fade to gray.
 
But the expansive sounds of
moments ago, maybe ages,
were the black glass
of what you called
fate, vomited from
the womb of the earth
in an empty glass case,
a vacant glass stare.
 
Our promises never to change,
etched into college‑ruled filler paper,
dissolved in the autumn rain.
 
Colored memories
always pale, you said,
and fade to gray.