Zixuan (Angel) Xin

dysmorphia

at arms length, I light the fuse,
caress it until my palms blister,
its creasings rise & the ridge
of the mountain on my fingertips.
my skin stretches to the night sky.
in the blue, the mirror, my body
swells. in my belly, the waxing
crescent bursts into stars.
a stranger suspends the way
I burn in their camera, my body
definite. somewhere in their frame,
a stranger implodes. blows off
their ribs & guts & lungs.
the body’s contour touches
the fireworks. there is nothing
inside that torso they leave behind.
will I shrink when my body is hollow?
in the ambulance, I implore
a doctor & he assures everything inside you
will live, cuts burnt rind with scalpels.
my body does not need saving. outside:
the crowd is dying. the arc flattens
into a line. under anesthesia, I lost
count of shapes. my body is–

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Zixuan (Angel) Xin is a poet and playwright born and raised in Shanghai. Currently a reader at ONLY POEMS, she is the founder and host of proVERSE and the Editor-in-Chief of The Gaia Review and The Lit, founded in 1895. She also is the winner of Sine Theta Magazine’s 7th Annual Writing Contest and a finalist for the 49th Parallel Award for Poetry, 2025 Hurt & Healing Prize, and 9th Annual Granger's Poetry Contest finalist. Her works are forthcoming or featured in Chestnut Review, Sine Theta, The Columbia Review, The Columbia University Press, Milk Press, Bellingham Review and more. She is also recognized by Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, The Poetry Society of New York, Roanoke College, The John Locke Institute and Frontier Poetry. She is currently working on her first poetry collection.