girl (see also: ocean tide in an embryo) | Teen Ink

girl (see also: ocean tide in an embryo)

July 10, 2022
By vfds457ueirfp BRONZE, Pleasanton, California
vfds457ueirfp BRONZE, Pleasanton, California
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

life: a promise floating in amniotic fluid, a cluster of cells not yet scared of the light. your mother gave you to the world, vernix, tufted hair & all. pudgy limbs cast in hospital fluorescence. in the spotlight your body does not feel like it is yours. & even now, you blame your mother for giving


because she taught you to do the same. you give yourself away to repay her debt & yet greedy fingers still count the price of a mother’s love. [of a mother’s life.] drown eardrums with the whispers of boys with dead ladybug eyes & a heart like the shell of one. they cling to you 


like flies to honey. the feeling of being wanted reflects off their eyes and into the mirror of yours. & you add a page to your mother’s book: let kisses boil the tendons at melting point & watch as their wings get stuck in your skin. the buzzing will quiet. [you think this is


the closest you’ll ever get to flying.] the closest reality wrung from fever dreams where you find your soul still lost in thought. a minute of bliss at the ATM - bones crackling like coin deposits before the red blinks back at you. [in elementary school, the teachers told you to leave


your mark on the world. & they didn’t account for you, the quiet girl with mousey hair who came crying in the ER not because she couldn’t speak, but because she knew she was marked. a girl with her job already done & yet years of feeling unfinished ahead of her.] this you do not know:


your mother’s handwriting, her scrawl, her signature. instead there is a checkbook signed on the fabric of your mind. it is addressed to you: a promise made but not kept, an overgrowth of cells not yet turned to the darkness. a girl who is still an embryo when you look at the shadows.


& even now, you blame yourself for giving when only one had to. 


& even now, you blame yourself for taking from her.


The author's comments:

Tho Nguyen is a Vietnamese-American writer and a rising senior in the Bay Area. Her work has appeared in Kalopsia Literary Magazine, Cathartic Literary Magazine, and the Bitter Fruit Review. She enjoys (read: adores) the words of Ocean Vuong and Stephanie Chang, and is always on the lookout for new authors. In her spare time, Tho can be found in her room, typing a poem in dim lamplight, listening to artists she forgets the names of too easily, or staring at the night sky, breathing in all of what surrounds us.


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This article has 2 comments.


on Aug. 10 2022 at 12:16 pm
nooneatall BRONZE, --, California
3 articles 0 photos 111 comments

Favorite Quote:
"Hats off to the past, coats off to the future."<br /> - American Proverb<br /> "Why do you keep hiding behind your mask,<br /> When even the scars formed by your mistakes <br /> are you own constellations?"

This is perfect..

Lydiaq ELITE said...
on Jul. 11 2022 at 2:05 pm
Lydiaq ELITE, Somonauk, Illinois
179 articles 54 photos 1026 comments

Favorite Quote:
The universe must be a teenage girl. So much darkness, so many stars.<br /> --me

Wow! This should have been editor's choice.
Thanks for listing your literary journals, I just submitted to the Cathartic Review.