Your Emergency Contact Has Experienced an Emergency

by Chen Chen

I see how my past is a nun who knows a lot of state birds & my future is a pancake-shaped abyss.

He is currently dead. He came in last Thursday, exhibiting clear signs of dying, such as saying in a clear voice, I am nothing except the wish to listen to Coldplay, & after one too many plays of their 2002 hit “The Scientist,” he is dead. Though few have improved from this condition, Chen Chen has been prescribed long baths in chicken stock & more recent music.

Or, if he remains his remains, they will find themselves fully content with the memory of Chen Chen, their sweet Chen Chen, before he became so whatever he was. They will think of him, so fondly, while sharing a bowl of strawberry ice cream, the last thing they remember him loving.

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.

Or as I said, 8th grade was all Robert Frost & Alanis Morissette. Because I had to learn who the important white people were. & we worship immigrant hardship instead of building a house more breathable.

I was born here but grew up there & I grew up there but was born of soup, both mung bean & primordial & in the future

god stopped by in his magenta rowboat i said god you have to stop stopping by if you’re never going to tell me the meaning of life god said life is meaningless while language often means too much

But it seems that fully gay equals more girl than boy. Fully straight equals fully boy, full of happiness. Bisexual equals girl boy boy girl girly boy boyish girl neither both both nobody never anybody too many bodies he’s confused. Of course, if I’m gay, I’m also confused. But this bisexuality is a far worse confusion. Chaos.

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

Are you afraid of women because of me? I shake my head. I am shaking my head hard (I remember that feeling, shaking my head instead of screaming, though I also did that). I am shaking my head & trying to say calmly, at a normal volume, I’m not afraid of women. I just don’t feel for women what I feel for guys, I guess. I want to answer my mother: No, I’m afraid of you because of you.

I can’t decide whether the university is a refuge for the bookish lonely or a T-shirt store run by a soda company.

What are the consequences of silence? I want to answer my mother: No, I’m not afraid of women. & I’m not afraid of you. I love men. That’s all. That’s what you can’t believe. Won’t say. Won’t let me answer, because you can’t find the right question.

If we could communicate fully, there would be no need to communicate. If we could love perfectly, there would be no need to love. If we could finish grieving, there would be no need to live. If we could touch completely, there would be no need.

was it failure, this fissure, or are you happier to have the space that opened up?