Hold your breath.
I was told humiliation is the breadth of sadness.
He thinks he has something to prove, run into the woods and emerge with a token.
And build a home for us to—turn broth to stew

Our money tree and moon curtains.
It won’t survive the winter when its leaves are already withered.
Trace the sides, and draw threads from my fingers.
Set the table, love,
the woods are too dark and I’ve bought candles
carved with stars just for this.
This hard-wood home,
this etched in altar where we worship icons made of snow and metal.
Not for them to give anything in return, but so we can keep what we still have.
The part that tries to escape me,
the two years that felt like one day
and growth bursting through denim inseams, held together like stitches
in a gutted hand.

I wanted freedom and footprints in snow,
but the light dimmed at the edges of the window.
I wanted to keep all this here,
in the house in the woods where it was always night time and we never ran out of light
—pouring from the sides of walls like melted wax.
Gold and swimming in distorted reflections of brass mirrors,
Cheap chandeliers became screaming kettles.
I asked you to cut some wood and you built a forest
to keep us in.
To taste the salt before it’s mashed at the bottom of a singing bowl.
And play a tune before the storm sips the roof over our heads.

You speak of years that don’t exist.
And count backwards to yesterday, sunlight scoring scales on our china plates.
So what happens after breakfast is made?
Do we stare at the blinds and count our seconds till night?
When we were children, what would we say to this.
Your mother and father took you away from church so we can play
And it’s still only the 8^th.
We have time,
I always think you say

Merilyn Chang is a journalist and digital media manager based between New York and Berlin. She’s studied comparative literature and creative writing for her bachelor’s and has since been working on her first novel. Her work has been published by Dazed, Resident Advisor, Fact Mag and more.