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This is your life as a performance.
Light on.
It’s the horseshoe necklace tickling your neck.
And rhythm in between steps.
                                                            Like tomorrow could die if we sidestep the question mark.
You say “hold your breath.”
                           “What about your future?”
             You say, “ That’s irresponsible. Sit in a giant box covered with lies.”
“Shut up play thing. I need to work. You need to work.”
Full of something else-
                          We are all full of something else.
                                          Bones.
                                                      Blood.
                                                                 Grandma’s Belgian waffles
                                                                           Freak show?
                                                                                         “I’m stuck.” Jack screamed but the child
                                                                                                       Shut down the headphones.
                                                                                                                    Inside the circus.


Wait until he’s let you out!
Poor Jack.
Here it comes.



Wind up the velocity.
Elongate your stride.
Jibber my jabber.
Here comes Jack.
And she baked cookies with your initials on top
Your name happens to be “Untitled”
So there’s a giant question mark.
Full of dough and sugar.
It tasted like Jack’s defecation.
Delicious is mutilation.
The East cries at night for the attention of vapor.
See the beautiful sunset bleeding into itself.
See the orange sky because
Of cans soot and damage.
The sunset smacks the horizon.
See the orange sky because they wouldn’t call you back-
Chained to a tree out west.



The transition will arrive.
Like an annoying child sitting between our see saw
We won’t go anywhere.





Until they leave and
SMACK.
I’ve made it ‘round the curve.
But I threw up a little syrup.
“Shoot for the dot.” And SMACK me harder.
And SMACK the shoes.
And SMACK those beating bleeding blood bags.
But don’t smack your gum.
Wrap yourself in pearls but put your ***** feet into heels.
Give me something that’s dreadfully whimsical.
Jack has made it out alive.
With a smile.
But the little boy hears his cry.
Grasping for life-
Shut tight.

Light off.
 Sep 2010 Kelly Zhang
Keith Ren
eighty-three days ago
i turned a pop **** box inside out
and filled it with pictures of you

i tied a red ribbon
around it

would you have done the same
if you weren't
color blind?
 Sep 2010 Kelly Zhang
Kylin Luna
In your Garden

There’s a chance that I am immortal,
And so at night I climb and decorate trees,
My pale limbs hanging dangerously
Over wind and cold water seas.

I have found other worlds in your garden,
While crawling through the tangled leaves,
My crown fell down a hole that led to
A land of compultion thieves.

I hold my knees to my face and whistle,
My pink hands shiver, tippy toes freeze,
I pick roots of ice growing, biding my time
Till the moon lets me hang from trees.

Over time frost grew between my blue hair,
And sharp cold raindrops tickled my feet,
I’m still waiting for you to remember me
In a garden playground wrapped in sleet.
Today felt like a clandestine speakeasy,
smoke in the air warmed spirits
as we pour glasses of burgundy wine
and dance with our arms around each other,
our noses touch occasionally to celebrate
the occasion.
Today, emotions trickled up to the eyes
like a fountain of some sort
wondering if it’s love
or if it’s pain. And instead of tears I hear
laughter and sad jokes.
Tinges of red and brown around the edges;
coffee stains that remind me
of a me that never will be.
 Aug 2010 Kelly Zhang
Pen Lux
It's a sad life when you spend your childhood licking knives
and you wait in the rain for hours, and you always get hurt,
and your moms dead, so you live with your dad,
but you can't afford band-aids.

I've been keeping myself busy lately so that I don't have to think about anything,
I've been thinking too much,  and that doesn't get me anywhere.
I made some money the other day, I still don't have a job,
but it was good money, and I bought some more books,
and I got a new journal.
I feel like writing in it again, maybe if I get my thoughts down I wont be thinking so much.

I've been avoiding other people lately,
but the loneliness is starting to get to me,
there's this point where it begins to eat away at you like the delete button, it's terrifying.

I was looking at the moon last night,
and it was too bright for me to handle.
I kept thinking that I wanted to sew my eyes shut,
and I wasn't wearing any underwear,
and I was really hungry.

I've been feeling so old lately.
 Aug 2010 Kelly Zhang
M Pence
Will it be all the nights of your bed empty when I couldn't sleep?
Are you going to choose instead, the moment
I put underwear on my head and asked in a horrible Russian accent,
"Would you like some bread?"
(--Look that wasn't entirely all my fault I...
had a lot of coffee and had been awake two days in a row.)

I'd prefer--
the flash of my mouth at your belly,
the way your cold feet shock me awake and
the run-on-wheezing-snorts
from you making me laugh so hard I cried.

Actually, I'd prefer
every moment of every day I said I loved you in cups of morning coffee.
Bacon and egg breakfasts.
Hanging out of cars and making Wookie calls;
the moment you taught me about Baba Yaga and I said
you were the smartest man alive.

I'd prefer if you remembered me when I go,
as the sun on your face in the morning after you get to sleep in.
(because I know how work, life, goes for you.
They never let you sleep in.)
As the lips on your closed eyes,
as the love that men and women fight and die for--
wrote legends, penned scripts and made movies about.
That love, our love.

I'd prefer if you just remembered me
as love.
 Aug 2010 Kelly Zhang
Pen Lux
I can't touch my face because my hands smell like popcorn
and I can't paint my nails because the smell is too strong.
I keep dancing with my arms and my head while I sit in my chair,
and I keep thinking it's okay, but I know it's not.
I want to paint a picture and tape a cats head onto a humans body,
and I want to light it on fire and take a picture of you naked and send it as a postcard to my best friend, (that I sort of have a thing with).
I'm not sure how many times I've called you this past week,
probably none, considering I don't like talking to you, (especially on the phone).
I'm not even sure if I remember your phone number or not, the numbers just keep mixing up in my head and then I end up calling my hair dresser or the pizza place down the street, (you know the one, with the salad bar that we never eat from).
I don't want to have to keep this up any more, I just want to put white out on those things I said and write over it with something funny or beautiful.
I don't want to have to worry about making the bed either, because it's really hard when you do it by yourself.
So please don't make me leave another message,
pick up the phone and tell me you love me already,
wait,
I don't want you to say it unless you mean it,
so just,
call me back.
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