Chase Dream

Poem by Jade Liu

Art by Ivy Tang

V W X Y Z

most of all, i remember the running

a tapped knee’s instinctual flight, the uncoiling spring liminal in desperation. a meagre handful of paces ahead on foliage slick, disintegrating under splintered feet, no further ground to be gained for the crumbling, relentless splitting of the reliable dirt into blackness so pitch the sole remainder after dismemberment is desire—

the sodden taste of it is salt oceans, the current a cruel gondola guide hellbent to ruin the little lead tired arms manage in limpid liquid gushing, through cracks of strength in fingers much too spread. i can’t suck in enough air to feed blistering lungs as the demanding ghost breathes across these shoulders in suffocating closeness and again i choose the edge of the earth and again i topple off and—

this is soaring. a full rushing gale, quintuple floating clouds, a sudden jolt. the ice drip of panic from feathers plucked clean to hard bone, still flapping but the descent from Eden is long-ing and i am afraid. of snake tongue tracing the earlobe’s bend, teasing teeth to pierce scarred flesh so i push harder, i fight harder, i strain to capture the translucent air but it slips. gone on a tumble and i plummet as disappointment, blinding in blurred technicolor, i feel it, i feel it all—

falling open into darkness,
the burden of perspiration trickles a trail on a chilled spine.