A new poem by poet and performer Zephyr Zhang.

you ask me if I still love you

in my memories with you my sinus issues stop, and when the rain blurs my glasses I can still see your reflection in the sidewalk. on the shore, illuminated by a single moon beam, we see a duck floating in the waves. in our apartment, I wipe down the mirror and see stars in my periphery. the bathwater is always blue. every night there are crickets. at twilight, I turn the lamp on and watch the moths, light-drunk on incandescence. I think about how you shimmer and glow in every moment.

you ask me if things will ever be okay again, if we will have a future together. I say yes, because I don’t regret any of the bad decisions I have made, even the things other people did to me. they all led me to this moment with you, this moment where we roll down the windows and holler through the victoria park tunnel. we are always hurtling down speedways and waterfalls. I feel giddy at the top of the ferris wheel, when I look over the shape of our life. the rivers are liquid gold in the sun. we are in las vegas, we are at the arcade, we hold a handful of popcorn in each fist. I anticipate the exhilaration of every second with you.

when we go to the city gallery and stumble into a theatre showing tiny plastic people, we witness the entire duration of their lives. I imagine what it would be like to live with you in a tiny plastic house. when we emerge from the film it feels like waking from a dream. over video chat, continents apart, we watch a TV episode where two gay men find each other post-apocalypse. in the future, we will paint fences and stockpile for winter. I know that I would kill for you, for our shared plotline. my love for you is certain, my life with you is expansive, all our timelines are inevitable.

The Friday Poem is edited by Chris Tse. Submissions are now being accepted until 21 April 2024. Please send up to three poems in a PDF or Word document to chris@christse.co.nz.