Dear you, I don’t think I need to say your name. You know it’s you. You know it’s always been you. I’ve fallen for you again, isn’t it...

A response to 'Crying in H Mart' by Michelle Zauner

"I got COVID at a concert last week, and am still / recovering. / I inadvertently drank rotten milk last night."

"It was an escape from exhaustion, an opportunity for repose."

I have not paused and thought for a while / Not about school, career, direction, future but just about the moment

This entire summer I’ve woken up in my childhood bed, rummaging through my mind for a piece of the person I used to be.

Something must be done about the blackberries, but I hesitate to prune their wicked plumage.

Too much for dialogue in one sitting but too little for the two generations to explain all that has happened before the Venom eyes.

"my paper butterflies / crumple like your eyes when you're hurt / and when my feet remain cold / after hours under the blanket"

as a child, i longed to be blue-eyed. with eyes like the ocean or perhaps the sky above, my life would be golden, maybe at last i’d be loved

Four new poetry reviews on Lilirose's Goodreads page!

"i want to be 17, like the movies: / i want to be kissed in the rain 17, / walking on train tracks 17"

Asian elephants remain endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List of Threatened Species.

"i am in need of your callused, leathered palms / to sprout me where the soil rakes fertile"

"There are two really big truths in life: 1. Ma was right—a cup of tea always helps. 2. Everything will change."

maybe you miss the girl you were in high school, all that skinniness and stupidity. the way she mourned before knowing what mourning was.

"Police have spoken to news outlets informing the public on Moonbin who 'appears to have taken his own life.'"

An incomplete poem, with an incomplete title, about an incomplete person

"Summer slashing silhouettes across heat-risen horizons. / Summer bikini, on sale 50% off."

A look at how mainstream LGBTQ+ activism often caters to "first world" English-speaking audiences and the pitfalls of language in allyship.