World’s Finest, Chloe Hiu See Tsang

 

my girl sits in the garden like eve on her knees and i bite her shoulders

in the milk white dusk leaving half cleaved marks of my sore teeth

on her skin. we sit on our haunches like dogs in the afternoon, red

faced semi-nymphs begging for something to do when there’s nothing

really to do but sit, blades of grass digging into the back of our legs,

tracing our fingertips all over each other and the trees and their

gnarled branches. we swat away the gnats and kiss each other red

and violent on the mouth.

 

my girl has rubies buried in her cheeks and gold on her eyelids. wears

skirts made of cotton and perfume called 4EVER YOUNG that she

sprays behind her ears and between her tits, nipples tipped with rose

petals. has a necklace with her initials on it and a bracelet with mine.

it dangles from her doll-joint wrists and knocks against the wooden

headboard when she’s reaching for a bible. she praises god with every

rise and fall of her chest, buries the rosary in the pocket over her heart

so she can have him there with every purr of her raspberry breath.

 

my girl takes her afternoon tea with a cube of sugar that my gums are

always aching for. tells me the funniest things like ‘i think you look

good in yellow’ and ‘god loves you’ and ‘god loves me’ while muffin

crumbs plunge from the corners of her mouth to the moss green

carpet. and i wonder over bathwater warm tea how a god could love

me and love her and hate us all the same. like our love was something

to be buried under a bed next to her brother’s filthy magazines we

discovered in late november. bare bodies all over glossy pages and bent

over laps and furniture, sat with their legs spread open wide like a flower

blooming through mulch. and she says ‘isn’t today lovely?’ and ‘oh! try

the scones. they’re still warm’ and i laugh and sear the edges of my skirt

against my legs, gorging myself on butter and wheat.

 

 

About the Author

Nyna Dies · Hawai’i Pacific University

Nyna Dies earned her Bachelor’s in English from Hawai’i Pacific University in 2019. “Clenched and Fist and Honeycomb” first appeared in Wanderlust.

About the Artist

Chloe Hiu See Tsang · University of California, Santa Cruz

“World’s Finest” first appeared in Matchbox Magazine.