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By Chenglin Wu
Denial
The lie dissolves
on an ordinary Tuesday –
where you wake
and the numbers
no longer add up.
18 and 19 – trial runs,
extensions of childhood.
But 20?
20 is the morning
you wake to find
your naivety
folded neatly
in the back of your closet.
Too small to wear,
too stained to care.
The calendar flips,
but your skin doesn’t fit.
No more “figuring out” –
you’re just
out of time
to pretend.
Anger
The ceiling fan ticks –
a sleepless metronome
counting wasted time.
On the desk:
- Beginner’s French, untouched
- Their last text, unanswered
- Your old diary, whose hopeful script
now just a spine
of crossed-out lists.
A wind sweeps in
through a window left ajar,
scattering what was once
so carefully placed –
a rustle,
a clatter,
a quiet undoing.
Only your hands remain,
palms up –
as if to catch
what you let drift away.
Replay
You flood the cracks in your life
with expired light.
You sign up for French classes.
You text your ex at 2 a.m.
You go to parties you know
you will not enjoy –
just to feel your veins
breathe a sign of life.
You sift through the husks
of who you swore you’d be.
Bare shelves,
turned pockets,
empty hands.
Depression
The night grows longer,
the ceiling fan counting your regrets.
What-ifs flicker –
like shadows
from the spinning blade.
Brief, blurred visions:
the hands that kept playing,
the mind that could parse Kant,
and the voice that spoke
before silence took its words.
You don’t mourn time.
You mourn the shapes
of lives left unmade.
Withdrawal
In an empty room,
the radio hums itself to sleep
The calendar’s blank squares
glow like unlit screens,
no more what-ifs,
no more commitments –
just the quiet relief
of nothing left to cancel.
The last guest’s shadow
lifts from the wine-stained carpet.
The buzz of a lightbulb
thickens in the air.
Acceptance
Morning will come,
and the hurt will be gone.
There will be no soliloquies, no dramatic exit –
just a faint silhouette
where the ache had once set.
The anger dissipates,
like a spent candlewick.
Sadness dissolves
into quiet acceptance.
You stop comparing.
You start being.
The unfinished chapters,
still there. Still heavy.
The next page. Unturned.
By 
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