we name every year
the worst year. resolves

into view an unhappy portrait:
the youth in the chair still,

unsmiling. brights of nursery
greyed with time. was there ever

happiness
here?

I just think of cicadas, in summer.
The worst year, maybe, but:

the only one they’ve got. and so
they rise like lazarus into our world,

made new and
screaming

Carly Ho is a gay Chinese-American neuroatypical writer and web developer from Chicago, Illinois. You can find her work on Tumblr at @untitled-draft.