Chlorine

by Jade Song

Nearly every human memory is corrupted by the fact that it is a memory of being human.

What is it called when immigrants reverse, when they wake up from the nightmare masked as a dream?

I loved her body, its thickness, its absolute denial of nonexistence. It hurt me to hear her hate herself.

How was I supposed to differentiate between the pain due to the concussion and the pain due to the agony of everyday human life?

I wanted to do what lovers do in bedrooms. I wanted to open your closet and trace the clothes you’d have hung there, imagining you had given me permission to take your favorite T-shirt for me to sleep in.

their sadness had materialized into solid weights onto their shoulders, but it is true that what humans call intergenerational trauma has always been heavy, sinking to the gloomy abyss of repressed memory to be mined for so-called wisdom later.