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.
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