By Joanna Liu
it doesn’t: that’s the easier
version. at 5 AM, my hipster ex/current
girlfriend asks me to create paradoxes
in the high school parking lot. i give
her handfuls: trees, parents, you. she
tells me this—you will never hear a tree
falling if you are not there to see it.
ex/baby, just watch me. she analogizes my threat:
trees::father—which is to say
that both will fall, but trees, at least,
will give you branches of memory. i tell her
the gravestone is still there. she asks
me if i knew how her father
used to call her by the other name, the
same way dentists call patients
into another room. i ask her what
name she’d like on her gravestone
when she falls. her palms are reddened
with sweat and disappointment;
we break up to resolve the paradox. when i return
home, i build my own analogy test:
tree is to deadname is to father.
because they are lonely, are contradictions, are you.
Joanna Liu is a poet and prose writer from Massachusetts. Her work has been recognized by the New York Times, the Alliance for Young Writers, the Bennington Young Writers Awards, and The Poetry Society, among others. Recently, her work has been published in Honey Literary, Polyphony Lit, and more. You can find on Twitter @cyoxyx.
Hot Pot Magazine 