Can’t stop thinking about survival lately, the slick & the flutter of endurance. I swear I’ll eat the next person who says we’re in unprecedented times. Jeff Bezos got $600 billion richer in 2020, & all I got is Mitch McConnell waiting
nine months to decide that I don’t need $600. All I got is Google reassuring me that I only have anxiety, not COVID, so let’s drain the liquor cabinets. The first night of lockdown, I prayed
I could weaponize this body, only to fear I’ll accidentally kill my mother if I forget to bleach the groceries. I spend so long pondering Zoom funeral etiquette that I forget what I wanted
to fight in the first place. Does that sound familiar? Fuck the coping mechanisms, God. Don’t tell me to bake sourdough & buy vibrators. I’m not interested in fortitude.
I’m watching the birds from my childhood bedroom, their wings always the last to stop moving. Even in death, it seems, the insistence to bend towards the blurring light continues, to latch
on with the fraying edges of our teeth. God, I know better than to ask you for our collective triumph. Most days, I have to remind myself to claw, desperate & bird-like.
I just don’t know when you’ll finally let me unclench.
Christina Wang is a Chinese-American writer. She attends Bates College in Maine. They've been nationally recognized by the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. Her writing is published or forthcoming in Savant-Garde, DIALOGIST, Wildness Journal of Platypus Press, & elsewhere. They are a juror for the 2021 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. Find her on Twitter @xtinawang_.