I read a poem last night and now I shed
rhymes from my head like hair. Lose line breaks
in boar bristles. Tear out syntax in
pure frustration.
That poem is the reason
today I have sonnets
fluttering loose
wherever I go. In the afternoon,
I sit and braid stanzas together,
and the sunlight makes even
the mistakes look nice, those
knots I can’t seem
to unravel, that my fingers
get caught in when I run them
through a song.
This always
happens. You would think
I would learn not to eat
poetry before bed, maybe drink
a glass of warm milk instead–
but I rather like the sensation
of sound across my scalp
and untangling metaphors
the next morning. We all
have our vices.
Miranda Sun is twenty years old. An alumna of the NYS Summer Young Writers Institute and the Kenyon Review Young Writers Workshop, her work has been nationally recognized by the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards and the Writers Alliance of Gainesville, as well as nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize. Recent publications include Body Without Organs, Lammergeier, Red Queen, and more. She is a former editorial assistant for Ninth Letter Online and loves the Monterey Bay Aquarium. You can find her procrastinating on Twitter @msunwrites or roaming the streets of Chicago in search of bubble tea.