When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities

by Chen Chen

Seeing you run so beautifully on the track that afternoon, I wanted you to suffocate, breath-starved from all the miles you’d run away from me.

The sun sets like an expensive fragrance. Like the memory of a neck.

I’m in the mood for facts. Big globs of them. Big adult rabbits of science.

Aren’t all great love stories, at their core, great mistakes?

When did I first realize my parents were not infinite? That I could see the end of them? Past their capes & catchphrases?

I admire my horoscope for its conviction. I envy its consistency. Every day. Every day, there is a future to be aggressively vaguer about.

Trying to get over what my writer friend said, All you write about is being gay or Chinese. Wish I had thought to say to him, All you write about is being white or an asshole. Wish I had said, No, I already write about everything— & everything is salt, noise, struggle, hair, carrying, kisses, leaving, myth, popcorn, mothers, bad habits, questions.

Sometimes, parents & children become the most common strangers.