ambition is an apparition of the most beautiful woman you have ever seen in your life. she does not text you back. sometimes you see her in the mirror. in your braided hair.

wounds are soft pink after the heat of steam and a night's sleep. this is the same shade you see in the flowers that grow outside your bedroom window. the warm flush of life.

your soft underbelly is milky white, your face is tan with sun, and you search for whitening creams in a korean grocery store near your house. freckles line the the horizon like stars you drew on her face.

dostoyevsky says that a man must work to be worthy of his own suffering. you don't like suffering, but you like the way blood feels on your tongue, the burn of muscles after exertion, skin being peeled back.

your body is out of your reach most of the time. helium party balloons with strings cut short. needles in your thighs. an iv in your elbow. you don't know how to inject yourself properly so it falls on your roommate.

your only friend is a razor blade, but she doesn't like you enough to reply. nights pass without you noticing because the blinds are always shut. she won't kiss your face anymore, only your arms.

she says e7. a pawn opens the door for her queenliness.
over by the counter, a tower sighs into the wind
her order of starbucks coffee. he says a3
she playfully tilts her spoon of sunlit konjac jelly
to his lips. over by the bishops they are discussing
a door to hell. one says to put up a blockade
and a pawn glares in their general direction
she shakes her head and says d4. he accepts
and asks about distant, far removed things
like parental approval and the efficacy of
work home commute. she says she doesn’t mind.
enough to still offer an open door to the rest of her life.
he holds open the door. she gives him a kiss
with a fresh coat of lipstick twenty paces down
the street in return. she hits her shoulder on the
elevator door when they leave for the night and she
will touch that bruise in three days time in the shower
in the morning she gives him a key and an
address; square a5. it’s an invitation that he
doesn’t take, a doorway he doesn’t go through
again. but he’s always the first to look at her
instagram stories after that. she finds herself
waiting on the sofa that faces the door on
alcohol-lulled nights but to no avail.