Teen Sequins 2024
Isabella Wang, Age 18
Bio: Isabella Wang is a student and poet from Connecticut. She loves birds, the color blue, and all sorts of wintery things. When not writing, you can find her enjoying thin pens, long corridors, and small, cozy alcoves.
Blue Crab / Flower Song
i. artist’s lament
We’ve all become artists in spite of ourselves.
Survival is tilting our tongues in familiar ways, to unfamiliar
thoughts, about familiar things.
& yet it’s wrong
to be this way, because: art is never just about
the art. We avert
our eyes, write in pen on our palms, & grip each
other, firmly. I only ever blindly feel wet
ink in the safety between your hands
& mine, away
from eyes peering over our
shoulders, the wind
that steals words from
our mouths. Burial.
Where are you
in this vacuum? (How much of one are we in?)
I wish to hear what you want to say.
I wish to hear what you say.
I wish to open your hand and see the ink there.
Your voice is sounding a little
unnatural today, too.
ii. blue flower / crab song
Here, take a chrysanthemum & cover
your mouth, let the words sift from
between the petals. Teeth: bright white
& hidden; breath softened by live long & rich &
happy.
It’s pretty, it’s art, it’s all we have.
(we can’t show the blood in our lips. the .)
It’s a secret, just for us, until the secret’s
been told, until all the flowers get killed
off in the field & we’re left with nothing
again.
Here, let’s talk about what we didn’t have
for lunch, the crab whose shell we wish
we could have cracked open, torn into
its flesh, shared together as any other
warm meal.
& how after the crabs were fished to extinction,
we turned to carp, light-flashing scales, wishing
we still had crab.
But how even when the crab sat
on our plates, we wished it were something else.
(a blue flower & the love is over.
a blue crab & the meal is over.)
iii. .
i promise, it isn’t ingratitude. the truth: we’ve always been
wishers. & our throats, learning new notes with each sunrise.
outrunning the score disintegrating behind us, hand in hand.
at least, for now, making music. writing the song as we go.
We’ve all become artists in spite of ourselves.
Survival is tilting our tongues in familiar ways, to unfamiliar
thoughts, about familiar things.
& yet it’s wrong
to be this way, because: art is never just about
the art. We avert
our eyes, write in pen on our palms, & grip each
other, firmly. I only ever blindly feel wet
ink in the safety between your hands
& mine, away
from eyes peering over our
shoulders, the wind
that steals words from
our mouths. Burial.
Where are you
in this vacuum? (How much of one are we in?)
I wish to hear what you want to say.
I wish to hear what you say.
I wish to open your hand and see the ink there.
Your voice is sounding a little
unnatural today, too.
ii. blue flower / crab song
Here, take a chrysanthemum & cover
your mouth, let the words sift from
between the petals. Teeth: bright white
& hidden; breath softened by live long & rich &
happy.
It’s pretty, it’s art, it’s all we have.
(we can’t show the blood in our lips. the .)
It’s a secret, just for us, until the secret’s
been told, until all the flowers get killed
off in the field & we’re left with nothing
again.
Here, let’s talk about what we didn’t have
for lunch, the crab whose shell we wish
we could have cracked open, torn into
its flesh, shared together as any other
warm meal.
& how after the crabs were fished to extinction,
we turned to carp, light-flashing scales, wishing
we still had crab.
But how even when the crab sat
on our plates, we wished it were something else.
(a blue flower & the love is over.
a blue crab & the meal is over.)
iii. .
i promise, it isn’t ingratitude. the truth: we’ve always been
wishers. & our throats, learning new notes with each sunrise.
outrunning the score disintegrating behind us, hand in hand.
at least, for now, making music. writing the song as we go.