Before we became strangers, you gave me a perfume made of rosewater and pheromones. I sprayed it on my wrist, drew Sharpie lips over my jittering pulse. To love in perfect solitude is a privilege. I kissed and sucked my wrist. I left toothmarks and licked them.
When we met, I wove a bracelet from my hair to give you. Then I kept it for myself. Now I wear your smell on one wrist and my bracelet on the other. On bad days, I’m not sure which hand to cut off.
Ariel Chu is an incoming PhD candidate in Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Southern California, where she will be completing a short story collection and novel with the support of a Steinbeck Fellowship. She received her MFA in Creative Writing at Syracuse University in 2020, where she was awarded the Shirley Jackson Prize in Fiction. A former editor-in-chief of Salt Hill Journal, a 2019 P.D. Soros Fellow, and a 2020-2021 Luce Scholar in Taiwan, Ariel has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, the Best Small Fictions Anthology, and the Best of the Net Award. Ariel's writing can be found in The Common, The Masters Review, and Sonora Review, among others; most recently, she guest-edited a collection of queer Taiwanese literature with the Asian American Writers' Workshop. Visit her at ariel-chu.com.
