“On Temperance” by Ashley Wang

I’ve found myself recently

abandoning the exclamation point, mark

of excitement or emphasis, in

favor of the sullen

period. Perhaps it is selfish. The paper

does not deserve my emotion. I puncture

only, with no runway.

I flatline until I am ground

in conversation. You must dig

to get anything from me. I’m happy

to do so. I would love to go. I’ll be over

soon. Every sentence wound

into a bullet

point at the end. Punctuation

rupturing the page. It tears

wounds anew into

creamy flesh. Perhaps I am

magnanimous. I am minimizing

damage dealt. Scab instead

of scar. I don’t take my time.

I don’t lengthen. When I am finished,

it will be the inverted flash of a dying

pinprick star.

Ashley Wang (any pronouns) is a first year LSA student. In addition to poetry, they also enjoy dance, music, art, and the process of figuring out how to make all of them fit together.