- stir raspberry soda into a champagne flute. Setting sun / cheek pink & neck yellow.
- buy two fountain pens. Black / Blue. Siphon the ink across your palms. Wash in the sink.
- visit China. Tell nainai again, again, again, until she forgets.
- buy a cat. Make sure it will love you back.
- pour yourself a bowl of music. Eat it / cross-legged / 6th period classroom.
- go star-gazing. Find an empty highway. Be anywhere, anything. Let the grass kiss your skin. The fireflies flit away, the wind like a snake language, swallow the hot air, let nothing breathe down your neck. Empty mall / empty ride / empty waters / empty hot-air-balloon. Be anywhere, anything. Be anywhere, anything.
- take the SAT.
- curl up in bed. Don’t think about the dying or the bucket list or the whirring refrigerator downstairs. Don’t think about the future /past / present at all. Knock on your knee thrice for extra protection. You know the rules.
- go to college.
- finish this poem.
Selena Zhang is a high school student living in Montgomery County, Maryland. Her work has been recognized by the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers and is featured/forthcoming in the WEIGHT Journal, the Eunoia Review, Sad Girl Diaries, and The Candid Review. She particularly enjoys writing poetic interpretations of her dreams.