Michael Chang

Two Poems

freedom 18

“That was not a threatening gesture, it was only a start of surprise. I was astonished to see him in Baghdad, for I have an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.”—Death, in The Appointment in Samarra 

my therapist says i look very tense, i say have you seen the clowns i work with⁠, three stooges⁠, and a GOAT, transcendental oriental. i give up the confederacy for some bubble tea, my comfort, my carnage. verse daily does not mean what i thought it meant, germs of desire, show me the goods, mucinex monster, stop putting boys on pedestals, boys are shit, we’ve heard enough from them, dirty grunts and quick tempers, they need to be quiet for millennia. they compliment my almond eyes, do you know how much water it takes to grow an almond, i am chaste and blushing, cute cute cute, kawaii kawaii kawaii, put this on, they zip me up, they say i can be cool & cute, i say you mean like sweet & sour pork. they don’t know how i live, they short-circuit my time machine, they jinx my rabbit’s foot, they pin me to the wall, they break my skin with their incisors, their vestigial wings twitching, their legs thrashing, they kiss up and kick down, they tinker with my machinery of death, they siphon my humanity like enron, their concern only a hoax, angels dancing on a pin. unmoored from the ground, untethered to reality, they fit in my curved palm, much too young, their seed modest, bitter nectar sloshing in their mouth, they practice their pout, fix their handsome bangs. i turn the tables, for once i ask a whiteboy, can i touch your hair, he leans in and i am in the chapel reciting our vows. orchids remind me of singapore, and sean, he is a financier now, can we pick up where we left off. still, sorry, i wish i could but, these boys build cathedrals, their mouths taste like whiskey and rocky mountain oysters. all is forgiven.

freedom 18 [2]

Libraries are the greatest

The pitter-patter

The whites of their feet

They lock eyes with me

This illusion of intimacy

They attempt to pick up their laundry

They say they didn’t order Chinese food

God

There’s a reason it’s called white noise

Like method actor Zac Efron

I jump into the role with both feet

Demure and Azn

Boisterous and lubed

Anxious and ambivalent

Always obsessive

Catch feelings on the first date

一山不能藏二虎

老虎有时也打哈欠

Little by little

I’ll make them fall in love with me

I tell them chotto (ちょっと)

I retreat to the back

I’ll come up with something

I play for keeps

MICHAEL CHANG (they/them) is the proud recipient of fellowships from Lambda Literary, Lighthouse Writers Workshop, Brooklyn Poets, & the Martha's Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing. Their writing has been published or is forthcoming in the Cincinnati Review, Summerset Review, Vassar Review, Minnesota Review, Santa Clara Review, Ninth Letter, Hobart, Harpur Palate, Poet Lore, The Nervous Breakdown, & many others. Their collection <golden fleece> was a finalist for the Iowa Review Award in Poetry.