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Soliloquy For You If You Ever Heal
by Abigail Chang

March 7, 2022 Contributed By: Abigail Chang

This piece was nominated for The Best of the Net.

Winding River by Edgar Degas
Winding River by Edgar Degas, courtesy of the Minneapolis Institute of Art

We gurgle pretzels/I decide I love you/it was never supposed to be

a permanent decision. Salt wedges inside

our bodies sandpaper my diaphragm —  I ache I pain. You magick

 a petal-handled

pocketknife & pound apples on 

concrete. Is this 

organic or

does it cough artifice? In the sun your fingertips emit starlight. In the sun I crumble.

 

So I strip you back like       a bandaid. You are bare-boned flesh. 

I manipulate your hair and weave in threads of aquamarine from 

a kit. You shear coconut until it glistens translucent.

 I Barbie your limbs & think about barbecuing ribs. I nurse

 

tender childhoods & drizzle ketchup on pizza. You are you and I am misguided. I 

lopside, I degrade. Sometimes I wonder Who are the dogs I bet on? The girls I sacrificed

starfruit for? The girls I altar before while candles spitfire. I prostrate — 

 

I think sideways. Sometimes I steeple & tremble  —  I sway, I swear you deserve 

this One 

Thing to yourself. I swear I’m sorry for not 

stepping away. That now when windows kaleidoscope & 

blossom, you shrink. I grow. That I feed on 

 

reverse osmosis — 

water gushes out of my       crevices. Now 

the sun bathes me & 

washes you out. Your fingers, your fingers, stained grapefruit, stained

fuchsia suncream. It is because of me that your paper veins are visible, are

cracked. I am both of our 

uterus’s 

villain origin stories. I am our limited edition rosary. 

 

Now, I ink, I drink —  many 

such things. I take. I self-medicate with regret. I salt salads and swallow 

raw things that grow inside of me. My seeds are teething. One day I will become an 

apple       tree. I will harvest whispers and tiptoed sighs/       lies of first love. I will freeze them

in my gut until they shiver silent & filament tapestries. I will release 

goldfish & silverfish to the masses. I will reap 

what I now sow until I am pudding-

 

dense. I will configure 

my body to fit yours instead of the other way around & mettle

a sherry-soft quilt. I will frame & blame a 

tender image in utero. But for now I lie on my back 

& drown &

soliloquy. 


ABIGAIL CHANG is a writer based in Taipei, Taiwan. She edits for Polyphony Lit and is forging through life armed with a severe artificial tea addiction. You can find her on twitter & instagram.

Filed Under: Featured Content, Featured Poetry, Poetry Posted On: March 7, 2022

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