If We Can't Keep This
I would tattoo this short lifetime
across my wrist. Racing the blue-shirt boy
to the neighborhood playground, trading
expired convenience store chocolate for fishing rods
as Chicago’s golden hour takes turns chiseling
our smiles into sculptures. I’ll whisper
made-up dreams about picking geese like flowers
from the half-moon lake near our townhouse,
but isn’t that what dreams are supposed to be?
Keeping things you wish you could hold? At night,
we shine flashlights across bedroom windows to trap
fireflies in the spotlight, see which ones are guilty
of being seen, the same as the day we met. Outside,
grass grows thick under city constellations
and we draw the purple blush of the hills, careful
not to look at each other. I confess, I asked you to leave
the light on—you laughed as you did, weighing this newborn fear
on your fingertip. When August crawls into September, you
apologize that the apartment will be the one thing that
stays: lights off, curtains drawn, childhood splayed
threadbare across the window of memory.
The next morning I wake up and run toward the end
of the dock, past the flowers stretching over the hill, past
the buildings spitting incomplete
reflections, past my grandmother yelling dinner’s
ready, why aren't you coming home?
across my wrist. Racing the blue-shirt boy
to the neighborhood playground, trading
expired convenience store chocolate for fishing rods
as Chicago’s golden hour takes turns chiseling
our smiles into sculptures. I’ll whisper
made-up dreams about picking geese like flowers
from the half-moon lake near our townhouse,
but isn’t that what dreams are supposed to be?
Keeping things you wish you could hold? At night,
we shine flashlights across bedroom windows to trap
fireflies in the spotlight, see which ones are guilty
of being seen, the same as the day we met. Outside,
grass grows thick under city constellations
and we draw the purple blush of the hills, careful
not to look at each other. I confess, I asked you to leave
the light on—you laughed as you did, weighing this newborn fear
on your fingertip. When August crawls into September, you
apologize that the apartment will be the one thing that
stays: lights off, curtains drawn, childhood splayed
threadbare across the window of memory.
The next morning I wake up and run toward the end
of the dock, past the flowers stretching over the hill, past
the buildings spitting incomplete
reflections, past my grandmother yelling dinner’s
ready, why aren't you coming home?
Sept / Oct 2023
Heather Qin (she/her) is a student from New Jersey. Her work has been recognized by the New York Times, the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, Breakbread Literary Magazine, Columbia College Chicago, and can be found in Kissing Dynamite and The Shore. Besides writing, Heather loves classical music and reading.
Art: Cam Pietralunga. Everyone Wanted to Be on This Ship. Acrylic on canvas.