For the Boy You Had a Crush on and Hoped Would be Under the Black Flap of Your Friend’s Paku Paku

By Melissa Llanes Brownlee

You spin out the hydrogen and helium, forming an accretion disk to surf along Saturn’s icy rings as you flip through atomic numbers at the speed of an old dog trying to keep up with his leash puller, limping along to bubble gum, bubble gum in the dish, how many bubble gums do you wish, wishing that the table of elements was as periodic as the time you got blood on the bed and decided to leave it.

Melissa Llanes Brownlee is a native Hawaiian tweeting @lumchanmfa from Japan and getting published in lit mags like (mac)ro(mic), Bending Genres, and Milk Candy Review.

Art by Melissa Llanes Brownlee.