Isabella Wang '24

an·chor (noun): A person or thing that provides stability.

             “believe me: the day the anchor fled from spool, the water was

             corpse-full, 
             dying.” 
 

eventually, we realized how useless it all was. that 
faith stole rationale from us, stars waving from liquid sky,

grainy ‘cause the world just collapsed in reverse. your

hollow bones snapped under the weight of 
ichor, and then our bodies were lowered softly. 
just like lovers. 

kin·dle (verb): To light, ignite. 
             “lost, that’s what they were—and nothing could rekindle the

             magnetism of an unwilling compass.” 
 

necropsy, split chest and slit tongue, goes on for 
only as long as the knife remembers itself as scientist.

pulled loose, are our lungs: newly 
quiescent and bizarrely 
ravenous. reaching, for the time before we were 
stolen away into wonderland. 

try to imagine what it’s like to not have colors dancing

under your eyelids. i can only muster the 
vague recollection of soft void, your 
winter-touched fingertips about my elbow. 
xenoliths, the both of us. displaced in magma heat. do

you understand what we are now? nothing like the 
zinnias we’d left behind.