J. XIANG

self portrait as White Gay Men

haven't you ever killed
yourself? haven't you ever
been onstage and crossed
your toes and hung your
hands in someone else's
gallows until they ached your
sunset tan anew? baby
greens & beets & bok choy & haven't
you ever longed? oh
i know you've longed before but i've
longed to be you in the nights i didn't
know you and that
counts for something.

Move, you say, and
I do. Haven't I strapped
down enough of
what could be yours? Don't
I get an honorary body? I want
so can you let me merchant
ivory dress until I'm safe for
your place? Love you tonight
and ignore me, please, canyon
chests and sauce on side. Photography
was a gay mistake. In
daguerreotypes you exist, in
mirrors you hide your face, and in
your footprinted carpet
I find the used, the beaten
belt you toss onto me and
in my hands I
find your death
wish and I
inherit from lover
to lover to long
for.

etc.etc.etc.

When you
         failed your gaokao was it two months before
                                                                         or after your parents
         gave up as you turned the schoolyard
         black in a ghost town of defiance?
Did you
         fall flat on your back with mud-ankles splayed out over sett
         alleys with sewage melting the clay cast of a bike?
Were the
         scores taped to the school sign, faxed
         in from Beijing and taken down by the English
         teacher with the received
                                                  accent that butchered you
         back into textbook talk?
Had you
         known before but still scanned the surnames,
                           took that breath we take
         before we let ourselves accept, or
         did you take longer cause you could
         pretend, still in the crowd, that you hadn't
         yet found it?
But when your mother came back, rough
hands sewing factory buttons on your
uniform cardigan, did she take one look
         at your face and know &
         hug you so tight that they flew
         back off then told you'd grow
         up into yourself until your body could
         lost all memory of itself? And did
she keep quiet at dinner in front of father & brother & saved face when they
prodded your shoulder blades but only dared to whisper at nightfall when
you forgot in fatigue that you could hear through brick walls like Superman so
you invented time travel to get on with your day
         or
did you mumble some excuse and she knew nothing til
she heard it down the proto-PTA grapevine that you choked on your
tongue, dreamt of a year of food and torn-up clothes wasted in twos until
in her rage she forgot whose tutelage you drew hope in the first place
         or
did she see your bitten hands wash the dishes in a contained
rage squeezed somewhere between your abdomen and lungs and
decided
to wait another day?

J. Xiang is a queer, Asian-American poet and student living in California. They spend their time getting lost everywhere, fixing vintage fountain pens, and occasionally writing. Their poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Up the Staircase Quarterly, Name and None, and others.