Pink plastic beads strung round my neck for Mardi Gras,
relic of my girlhood like Tamagotchis & Silly Bandz &—carry this,
it’s Zinfandel, the type of wine my mother used to sip before bedtime,
eyes welling with unshed tears. Three flasks bundled
into a flannel shirt we’ll be late
for the party placed tenderly into my dumbstruck arms.
Go on now into the hallway crackling with silence,
into the gasping night. & I—& I, all gaping wide-eyed wonder—
I’m acting so terribly young tonight.
Still, these are the things about which
I’ll write: dollar-store mascara clumping
like darkened snow, a dim halo dismantling
my upturned face, bare skin brooking no lies—so yes,
maybe I’ll play pretend for just a while
here, in this strange world light years from my own
here, with this boy who swears I’m indestructible.
So this is what they call a rager, strobe lights flickering
against the drywall spilled beer sullying the floor, a ripple
of bodies weaving through the dark,
together & alone. His hands are sculpting me into being,
Descartes was wrong, I’m touched
therefore I am. Tell me. Five drinks downed,
fifty, something I don’t know, fifty stars on that flag, I don’t know
about you, I didn’t know
what he might do. (But to be ignorant is one thing,
to be willfully blind quite another.)
Forgive me. I’m still learning
to absolve myself of all the things I did & did not do. I confess to want,
to gluttony. But can you blame the starving for their hunger
or the nomad for his thirst? I admit
to revising history, creating another time & place
where I’m almost happy, redacting the inescapably bitter end.
Forgive me. I’m still learning
to remember.
*
Emily Yin is a freshman studying applied math at Princeton University. Her writing has been recognized by the UK Poetry Society and the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers, among others. She currently serves as poetry editor for the Nassau Literary Review.