you kiss a girl with a mouth like a bat cave / & she tells you she puts on her metal-tipped boots /
& stomps cracks into sidewalks / because she hates her mother / for wanting to burn her at the
stake. / after your mouth singes / she sneaks you into her house / while mom’s on the graveyard
shift / & feeds you all her family ghosts. / they curl in the bed of your tongue / & leave face-
shaped cavities along your molars / the way she does in your hands. / her mouth is honey cell / a
newborn fruit / bones jumbling in the pit of her stomach / after she eats every skeleton in the
floorboards. / when your bodies wind down / she counts your bee stings / says your fist fits so
well in her chest / with a finger between each bone. / you hold her how you hold safety scissors /
like a lesser gun. / when she cries / you make card towers / with every spade in the suit. / her
heart thrums & echoes / her face a stained paper mache. / & when the roof caves in / she falls to
pulp. / her mom pulls up old-school / red chevy in ignition / her eyes dissolve / & you are yet /
nother ghost / imbedded in the trenches of the walls.
DIANA KHONG is a poet and artist of color. She is currently editor-in-chief of Kerosene Magazine and is on staff at Noble Gas Quarterly and Ascend Magazine. Her work takes on girls, life post-diaspora, and bad dreams. She tweets @oldadams.