Seething Brains
Blue bird, bamboo, bubbling brook.
Fill your chest with scents of wood.
Sunset, soft light, tender night.
Sleep tight—
Something’s not right.
What if—
Something’s not right.
Think.
Think pleasant thoughts.
Thoughts.
Too deep in your thoughts.
Sink.
Sink down in this muddy pond.
Fill your chest with muddy air.
Bubbling.
Bamboo boat made of bamboo shoots.
Float.
Where to—
To the fall.
Fall and you will fall asleep.
Sleepless, long day, endless noon.
Noontime white and blinding.
Firing, burning, burnt.
I’m freezing.
My hair wet and heavy.
Tangled with seaweeds.
Sea waves wreck my bamboo boat made of
Bamboo shoots that fall apart.
Let them fall.
What if—
Let them fall.
Moonshine, sea salt, shimmering sand.
This silence’s heavenly.
Until—
By Rose Ruixi Zhang
Biography
Rose Ruixi Zhang was born and raised in China. She came to the US to study Shakespearean tragedy and psychoanalysis at a women’s college in Massachusetts. She has worked as a librarian, a psychology researcher, and an English teacher. She prefers to write in English, her second language, even though sometimes it takes her two hours to compose one good sentence.