Kimmy Chang

to the pile of dead roaches under the window

lately, the apartment reeks—
even the roach looks pitiful, split-shell.
i want to speak, but your voice
clogs the room’s air.

so i squint my eyes, shutter their focus,
lower myself to paper scraps, gum-stuck wrappers.

the laptop screen flickers—
gray logs, red errors—
you ask how much longer it will take
 
until the code stops breaking. until it runs clean.

i think of lying, burying the laptop
beneath other to-dos.

i think of opening it
beneath the covers at night to finish.

but i don’t. i work through your words.
 
all the while another roach takes to the air—
its delicate wings tap dancing in futility,

shouting—
here, here—

watch me flail
watch me rise

tell me i won’t
become another fallen body.

Kimmy Chang is an aspiring poet working toward her first chapbook. She studied poetry at Stanford under Aria Aber and Richie Hofmann. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and appeared in trampset and LandLocked.