Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency

by Chen Chen

Reporters & fathers call your generation “the worst.” Which really means “queer kids who could go online & learn that queer doesn’t have to mean disaster.” Or dead. Instead, queer means, splendiferously, you.

Because I had to learn who the important white people were. & we worship immigrant hardship instead of building a house more breathable.

But this bisexuality is a far worse confusion. Chaos. My mother looks at me like I might sprout a set of octopus arms, or like I might shed my body altogether, become a touchless drift, a gust of ghost.

How do you tell someone you love them without making them think about one day losing you?

She looks at the dog, seems to have an easier time looking at the dog, than looking at the boyfriend, the boyfriends, us. I want to say, Mom, look. Ask about us. She asks about the dog.

Three queers drinking definitely too much coffee,

Three queers feeling like twenty, drinking ever more coffee, telling sleep to go bother the straights. Three queers staying up until late becomes early.