I like to paint / over a painting / just to see / if the story it tells / the one with the purple sky / and below it / a pair of silhouettes / changes into one / where I’m actually in. / It’s fine if I’m stood / behind the trunks of the autumn trees / or in the form of a lone sparrow / or even hidden in the crevices of the minds of two children. There’s a bottle of tears / under my bed / and as I let the substance spill / onto my fingers / and slither / into the nooks of the frame / I watch a blue-gray sea / of scattered memories / ripple against its own waves. / The landscape / now is darkness. / Perhaps there was nothing / to begin with / and so I’ll start / my own journey. / The brushes / on blank canvas / pave a never ending / road.
Adam Zhou has been recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards at the National Level and his work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Rising Phoenix Review, What Rough Beast, The Kill List Chronicles, Eunoia Review, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, among others. As a high school sophomore at the International School Manila, he has been subject to the wide array of exhibitions cultural perspectives have to offer and aims to share these through writing.