perhappened mag
issue 7: SNOWFALL
i develop a skin
picking disorder
KIMBERLY NGUYEN
CW: dermatillomania
what are my fingers are looking for/ my hair—broken strings from a harp/ plucked and broken on the floor/ my skin—falling like a layer of fresh snow/ on the counter/ i collect the snowflakes into a jar/ and tell myself i’m just trying to see the damage/ i say i’m just trying to measure this blizzard in inches/ when i know these are my artifacts/ each scab—an amber stag i mount above my fireplace/ what i know about grief/ i learned here/ to bury and unbury in the same stroke/ each day—a burial and an excavation/ i dig up the same wounds/ and pretend they’re new/ i bury them again to discover them/ what am i punishing myself for/ i forgive every infraction against me/ except those self-inflicted/ tell me/ in the morning when the snow has settled into banks/ will you know where to find me/ will i?//
Kimberly Nguyen is a Vietnamese-American poet originally from Omaha, Nebraska but now living in Brooklyn, New York. She is a recent graduate of Vassar College, where she was a recipient of a Beatrice Daw Brown Prize for Poetry. Her poems can be found in diaCRITICS, Sin Fronteras Journal, and Meniscus Literary Journal, and are forthcoming in Hobart and Muzzle Magazine. She is a Best of the Net 2020 nominee and the author of a recent poetry collection, "ghosts in the stalks". You can connect with her @knguyenpoetry on Twitter and Instagram or on her website.