Apartment Building

Toss a pillow to decide when to read poems:

today or today? Late at night, I have dust

written on the margins of pages,

and I number my coughs designed for them，

under the dim bedroom lamp.

I have light because I have an allergy to dark.

I need flowers that cling to water

to nail air into my lungs. I like my leaves

and my breaths. Even though sometimes

I choke on my own

smog because I own flames. I produce

fears for myself to

outcompete my uncontrollable nightmares.

I have habits built around flowers. And scribble

down Poems in capital in the corner of my pillows.

I breath in the presence of 2 a.m. in my hometown

as if breathing in floating petals. This is such

a small city, smaller than this skinny afternoon

in my bedroom –

with clouds as wonderful as dashes, refusing

to be whitened. Next to them,

I have clean curtains

and clean sunlight. My bedsheet is

a slate of sand waiting for renewable words:

I fabricate one-word poems and one-day

footprints for them. I’m an

over-writer in this poem

meant to be concise, which namely,

I call it life. Happy to be an over-liver

at half past 4 in the morning, and

Become friends with the lungs of this planet –

For we are all beautiful organs.

Writing letters in evenings is always hard

as long as the one on the other side

is someone I adore but cannot admit.

But now it’s a lovely time for lunch.

A slice of watermelon sits on the table

like a slice of crimson moon.

I smile for I also like to shine.

kitchen is a suitable place

to boil lower case pains, with all

the flour, knives,

cream, heat, and a feeling

that we call home.

2021.8.27