Kaitlin Tan

The Island (fragments)

I am stranded
on the island of today

where years steal
my draining resemblance

until none can see
that wintertime
has become the rest of me

My skin is porous
to all seasons

Histories
grow over it
like scaled moss

I pry myself open

to the possibility
that hope
is a practice
to be learned

while gravity
leaves me
tilted

like those before
and before
and before

Kaitlin Tan (she/her) grew up between Manila, Philippines and Macao, SAR. She is a junior at Johns Hopkins University majoring in writing seminars and cognitive science, with a minor in visual arts. Her fiction has appeared in Contrary Magazine, Unlikely Stories, and Every Day Fiction. Her poetry can be found in Eunoia Review and Neologism Poetry Journal.