in red season, my teeth hang off hinges
and i’m tonguing door stops with my
knees staked into the linoleum until
you are home again.
you loved me once before i knew what
a past tense was and netted myself in
a set of skeleton keys, that is my body,
i say; i say it — my body is here
you loved me once, twice removed.
i am still red where you slotted your body into mine.

Diana Khong is a queer poet and artist of color from Massachusetts. She is currently on the five-femme of color team curating the small zine, Ascend, and the literary magazine, Girlfruit. Her work takes on modern colonization, life post-diaspora, and what it feels like to be a Vietnamese woman in a white man’s America. She is 16.

twitter: @oldadams
tumblr: @grisiy