this is how we osmosis

Allison Wu | Poetry

inserted in the membrane 

of spread-eagled quiet 

​

distant and softened, grafting

ourselves into belonging, 

​

like an abrasion. we forget half

our limbs by the riverbank 

​

and become the periphery, 

indigo hiding behind violet, 

​

the one they cannot put 

a finger on. how a whole 

​

must have edges, defenseless

against grasps. feel it surge 

​

through our skin, winding 

and convulsing. this breeze 

​

bears an unraveling, 

shackling itself to our lungs. 

​

we are airless and permeable

dissipating like embers. 

​

a drawn-out assimilation, leaving us

with just enough to burn.

Aerial

Allison Wu | Poetry

weightless, we exhale             our bodies until

we are the sky,                   dampened by night.

motes of stars percolate          from within us

grasping for   the horizon. the constellations

hold no answers, and even up                   here

as we mold to                        atmospheres, our

torsos a world,              apart, we are nowhere,

invisible in the alien                              folds of

dimension, our existence       gauged by only

functionality:           the canvas for migration,

a presumed lullaby, a pristine                  sheet

blanketing life.          we stay          primordial

and forgotten,     a distance              reckoned

and slipped             between the            aching

curves             of our limbs.          glued to our

vastness,              no way             of translating

this       untouchable infiniteness       we hold

against              the sleeping                    skyline

like a cruel           promise. we stay       foreign

bodies in this          celestial sphere,     warped

in the whites of           eyes.                   the dark

was once          heavenly, like an          unfaded

homeland             our own tiny           universe

burning        so undoubtedly                      alive