Alison Guo

green light

i roll the red-black pills between my fingers, they
remind me of those melting bugs that come back

every summer. at night, i can’t swallow them fast
enough & they run bitter down my throat. i have

this dream where we’re in an elevator and we
are going to the doctor, it is the most clean place

you have ever waited in. i’m scared of going alone.
on the way up, the cables snap and it feels like

we’re flying, by then, i know it’s a dream. your
heavy breathing and the automated voice. going

down. doors closing. ground floor. ground floor.
i wake up. we didn’t get even the prescription refill.

//

last summer we started going to the city alone.
shaking across the tracks, our parents thought

we would finally learn something. but there,
wherever you went, five feet away was someone 

more human than you could ever be. a man who
sells i love ny shirts for tourists and opioids for 

“look how high i can get.” he has seen all the
things flown on the antenna spire of the empire 

state building and still, every week he sets aside
some for himself. you want to have seen all the 

good flowing out of the sewers and leaking out
of the rain gutters the way he has and still want to 

lose everything in that controlled manner. these
days it is all you ever think about. i can see it.

// 

i try to dye my hair red. box dye and the stained
sink. how much peroxide does it take to start 

over? i’m eyeing the emergency brake, the glowing
exit sign, and all i want is to be someone clean, 

someone that exact shade of restlessness. this
whole summer your bags have been packed. you 

take the amtrak. live a life where you can
afford losing. learn to forget everything as 

you watch the parallel lines
of the train tracks blur together.
i stand on the platform,         close my eyes.
again.    and again.            and
again.
until i can’t even see the the reddish black of my inner eyelid.

________________________________________________________________________________________

Alison Guo is a high schooler from Long Island. She likes grapefruits and the subway.