I just want to be a mitigator.
I just want to be a little something
to take the edge off.

i try to pluck my cô dì chú bác from / their endless dreams. their breaths, / smelled of newly-damned artilleries, /
their mouths, stained with tiết canh red-bright.

The only life in sight: the “E” flashing in the exit sign a few feet above my eye line.

we will take and take until there is no more
and then what?

the world is a
symphony & I only see birds,

the problem with bodies is that they’re just too fragile. even something as bold as a ribcage can be crushed into tiny stars, bones magnified into gritty ash.