Corpse of Devotion

Angelina Nguyen, Del Norte High School, graduating in '25 March 16, 2023

Artwork by Katelyn Zhang, Del Norte High School

Home

I falter in my faith, my home,

something allegedly “perennial”

For you my truest form of love

is bound by ancient blood

An immortal station, a

sickeningly anachronistic practice,

The edict that family

is law.

I bleed so maybe you

will open your eyes to my

cauterized wounds

unprepossessing impressions

the strokes of an intangible media

your words claim residence

in my mind

plastering my skin like a

branded animal.

I was conceived by

a dance of woman and man

nurtured in a

house of strangers

where palpable tension

etches itself into my flesh

reality slaughters me

and no blade is

finer than failure.

Away

I am an engineer when I am away.

Perhaps in my isolation

I may construct a sanctuary.

I alone wither in this house

not my own

because the word “own”

derives Possession

and It has struck me that

wherever I am, it is not Mine.

I write for you on the chance

You might hear my cries

in the nights we forget to sleep

through paper walls

thin as sheets of ice.

Avarice cradles me and

if paper money was praise

forgive me for my sins lord,

I am so greedy.

I am most beautiful

when I am anguished

so slit my wrists

bleed petals and prose

let my tragedy be a comedy

and if some great poet

narrated my privation

would you finally

shed a tear for me?

Safety

“I’m sorry.” is a safety net,

but these are words you

forfeit the right to believe

because upon my lips

it catches on my tongue

like a song that I’d

lost the lyrics to

but in reality I’ve simply

Become a foreigner in sincerity.

I know my mind yearns,

dreams of dredging up old

fragments of a vintage mirror.

“Let me piece her together,”

but even my heart knows

I am shackled to folly

But as a slave to the past

I sow seeds of regression.

I am a muse

in your philosophy

the portrait you’ve painted

in arbitrary brushstrokes

pigmented with withered

flowers; collusion with ink,

you smear your legacy

across this canvas of flesh

and we look nothing alike.

Corpse

A corpse of devotion

is an overplayed requiem

butchered on the keys of

A dissonant piano

because you wanted me to

learn and I never practiced

Even if the lessons

had costed you

your weekly wages.

A corpse of devotion

is ardent in irony

a fickle reminiscence

of a time that

perhaps once there was

warmth, color in the

Flesh and sinews strung

across decaying bones

but that memory has passed.

A corpse of devotion

is no corpse at all

It is a trapeze artist

teetering on the thinnest

line between Life and Death

as though she is waiting

for the slightest breeze

to tip her in one

direction or the other.