Inheriting the Hurricane
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We inherit the hurricane
from the sky & destroy our bodies as if it were the most ancestral ritual. We kneel down on separate bedroom floors. You mix alcohol with tobacco, steal a light & house the mixture inside your mouth. Smoke from your lips snakes 2,451 miles of skyline before entering my lungs. I refuse to eat because after mourning you there are no rooms left in my stomach for food. We have lost a homeland. We have lost each other. Now, our body is the only home we still have left. We can’t lose that, too. |
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Jess X. Chen is a queer, Asian-American artist, filmmaker, and poet. Her first full-length book of poems, Sing Me A Time Machine, is forthcoming. She holds a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, and her artwork has appeared in The Los Angeles Times, The Huffington Post, The U.N. Human Rights Council, and on indoor and outdoor walls throughout the U.S. Her poems have appeared in The Offing, Nepantla: A Journal for Queer Poets of Color, The Margins, and on stages, TEDx conferences, backyards, and rooftops nationwide. You can find out more about her work at www.jessxchen.com.
Ze Gao was born in China in 1992. He is a photographer, painter, curator, national senior photographer, and makeup artist in China. He studied fine arts at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) and obtained an MFA in Photography, Video, and Related Media from the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He was also admitted into the Professional Teaching Materials for Students of Photography in Higher Education Institutions in China. His works have been showcased in many exhibitions in the United States, Europe, Korea, Singapore, and China.