Fiona Jin

All I Have of You

Cracked concrete. Rubber racetrack. I am running
as fast as I can, flagpole, watery red. Six months ago cold
fingers cradled my head: Stay still for the doctor, stay still for
me. Outside, the vending machine’s coughing up smoke:
Kick it, you said. Make it open, make it bleed. I am this
far from then, measured in breath. I am killing flowers
for you. The balcony above. Wavering shadow. I am this far
from knowing the calories of a salted road. Six months
and still, I don’t remember, but please, save this, like Sweethearts
in your backpack, like a wound scared of closing. I promise
I’ll jump into the snow; promise that in this one, you’d never
meet the headlights of a bus, saltless December sky. The screen
is frozen and somewhere a laughtrack plays—
Everybody loves tragedy until it’s tragic.
Everybody loves until they can't keep running.

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Fiona Jin is a queer Chinese American writer from Ames, IA with roots in Beijing. A YoungArts Winner with Distinction in Poetry and Chicago Youth Poet Laureate finalist, her writing has appeared in Ghost City Press, GASHER Press, WBEZ Chicago and Trace Fossils Review, where she will appear as a featured contributor to its special "Homing" issue this January.