CROOKED ARROW
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Christine Deng

Digital Fragments 

After Ocean Vuong 

My heart is a fruit, halved. 
Anger, a hot stone I mistaken for food. 

A knot, tied firmly within. A fist tightened. 

              Loosen your grip, I say. 

               Fuck off, it replies. 

Resilience is an heirloom, a hand-me-down quietly stained with blood. 
I will learn to grow into it. 

for my therapist:
          I tried writing about           

                                                           but when I got up to                                                                                      
                                                                                                                       my hands, again, refused.

It was the book. The hunger for sex, the animalistic familiarity of the description. 
I sit, eyes gleaning anguish from the page. 

therapist says, write, don’t stop. write until you’re undone. 

              You mean write into oblivion? Write into a flood? 
             Molars clenched, spirit unrooted. 
             Return to this fatigue that envelopes. 
             This locus of corroding energy.
             This demon, scaling my back. 
​

             My body screams. My tears take their place in defense. 

This bed is a sinkhole. 


Christine Deng (she/her) is a Chinese-American writer, educator and baby gamer. She’s currently working on a poetry translation project of her late grandmother's work. Born in NYC, she presently resides in Hoboken, NJ and can be found at @deng.girl on Instagram and @deng_girl on Twitter.

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  • About
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  • Bullseye
  • Issue 6
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