狮子山隧道
//////: lion rock tunnel
1.
Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon
The joy of friendship, family, dignity of craft, & the mechanics of desire
YMMV
Your mileage may vary
2.
“A once-in-a-generation talent”—self
Yes
Don’t feel bad about yourself
3.
Wut r ur pronouns ||| none do not refer to me
Ok . . Chiaroscuro like the sausage
4.
Spoiler in a race for student government
The James Soong
of law school politics
5.
Youth on a pedestal
your friend creighton can pass for a chinese
a korean baby
found on a bench
sounds like part of Biden’s stump speech
Where is Hunter Biden ?????
6.
All sentiment is anti-American
Google your bf’s phone number
You real Miss Independent
Proud member of the obstructionist Democrat party
The Do-Nothing Democrats
Doing nothing sounds so good right now
7.
Putty in your hands
Do you go to Waffle shop lol
Sometimes it’s slightly overrated and always a line
Lmao
PSU students love breakfast for some reason
8.
I wish I were a better baker
It’s chemistry & I’m really bad at following formulae
I’m drawn to the tastiness & the smells & the beauty of it
I’m attracted to the irreversibility of it
Sure, you can save it sometimes
But if you leave out this or that thing
It could be a hot mess
9.
When I was young I was on the front page of the local paper
I was pictured at the front of the pack, running through the school gates
to mark the first day of school
I’ve actually never seen the photo
I remember them posing us & setting it up
I’d like to think I was wearing a cute rugby & nice pants
But I was wearing my uniform, of course
Everything I know about my time on the cover
Is through word-of-mouth
Jealous friends, parents, general haters
It won’t be my last time on the front page
I know that for damn sure
10.
He was just starting out with fiction-writing so he ax me for writing tips
I found myself using key phrases like world-building
Overwritten, overdone, overexplaining
No matchy-matchy, punchier phrases, vary sentence length
You have to move the conversation forward
The talking points of life
I’m so obsessed with world-building
11.
Memories are like cells ; ; ; ; ; ; always replaced by new ones
12.
It’s bad to fall in love with who somebody could be
& not who they are now
Matte black cherry exactement
13.
He sucks me high & dry
Ichor drip drip
Puts his mouth on my wound
Speaks into it
A rip-off, a con
The deck was stacked
The books were cooked
Wake up!
It was all a shell game
Nothing beats Chinese food & Cristal
Got it? Any questions?
14.
Living walls & that A5 Wagyu with excellent marbling
beguiling
seductive
that exquisite bestest
I feel so inside you
Shake Shack tossed my salad
Land O’Lakes all infinite loop
Muscles bursting
Tom of Finland
German board games flourishing
Haven’t we learned our lesson!
Sapiosexuals trending
You’re just an overgrown orangutan!
There’s only so far a pendulum can swing before it starts going in the opposite direction
15.
White people & their hand-wringing over Kaepernick
Favorite things blowjobs & cough syrup
“But he’s half white!”
You thought CRT was a kind of Cadillac
You said Black Mountain College is where delinquents play with horses
I’m the last person in the world to need Grammarly!
•
Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon
The joy of friendship, family, dignity of craft, & the mechanics of desire
YMMV
Your mileage may vary
2.
“A once-in-a-generation talent”—self
Yes
Don’t feel bad about yourself
3.
Wut r ur pronouns ||| none do not refer to me
Ok . . Chiaroscuro like the sausage
4.
Spoiler in a race for student government
The James Soong
of law school politics
5.
Youth on a pedestal
your friend creighton can pass for a chinese
a korean baby
found on a bench
sounds like part of Biden’s stump speech
Where is Hunter Biden ?????
6.
All sentiment is anti-American
Google your bf’s phone number
You real Miss Independent
Proud member of the obstructionist Democrat party
The Do-Nothing Democrats
Doing nothing sounds so good right now
7.
Putty in your hands
Do you go to Waffle shop lol
Sometimes it’s slightly overrated and always a line
Lmao
PSU students love breakfast for some reason
8.
I wish I were a better baker
It’s chemistry & I’m really bad at following formulae
I’m drawn to the tastiness & the smells & the beauty of it
I’m attracted to the irreversibility of it
Sure, you can save it sometimes
But if you leave out this or that thing
It could be a hot mess
9.
When I was young I was on the front page of the local paper
I was pictured at the front of the pack, running through the school gates
to mark the first day of school
I’ve actually never seen the photo
I remember them posing us & setting it up
I’d like to think I was wearing a cute rugby & nice pants
But I was wearing my uniform, of course
Everything I know about my time on the cover
Is through word-of-mouth
Jealous friends, parents, general haters
It won’t be my last time on the front page
I know that for damn sure
10.
He was just starting out with fiction-writing so he ax me for writing tips
I found myself using key phrases like world-building
Overwritten, overdone, overexplaining
No matchy-matchy, punchier phrases, vary sentence length
You have to move the conversation forward
The talking points of life
I’m so obsessed with world-building
11.
Memories are like cells ; ; ; ; ; ; always replaced by new ones
12.
It’s bad to fall in love with who somebody could be
& not who they are now
Matte black cherry exactement
13.
He sucks me high & dry
Ichor drip drip
Puts his mouth on my wound
Speaks into it
A rip-off, a con
The deck was stacked
The books were cooked
Wake up!
It was all a shell game
Nothing beats Chinese food & Cristal
Got it? Any questions?
14.
Living walls & that A5 Wagyu with excellent marbling
beguiling
seductive
that exquisite bestest
I feel so inside you
Shake Shack tossed my salad
Land O’Lakes all infinite loop
Muscles bursting
Tom of Finland
German board games flourishing
Haven’t we learned our lesson!
Sapiosexuals trending
You’re just an overgrown orangutan!
There’s only so far a pendulum can swing before it starts going in the opposite direction
15.
White people & their hand-wringing over Kaepernick
Favorite things blowjobs & cough syrup
“But he’s half white!”
You thought CRT was a kind of Cadillac
You said Black Mountain College is where delinquents play with horses
I’m the last person in the world to need Grammarly!
•
MICHAEL CHANG (they/them) is the proud recipient of fellowships from Lambda Literary, Lighthouse Writers Workshop, Brooklyn Poets, & the Martha's Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing. Their writing has been published or is forthcoming in the Vassar Review, Minnesota Review, Santa Clara Review, Summerset Review, Heavy Feather Review, Yellow Medicine Review, Juked, Radar, LandLocked, Poet Lore, Ninth Letter, Hobart, & many others.
