Vanessa Chen

My Driving Instructor Says I Need to Get Comfortable with the Curb

But there are weeds slicing the pavement
I am unborn
        At dusk
A cigarette butt
Smoulders itself out on the ashtray
Proximity has teeth
Of stone
Skin of asphalt
Nightfall pregnant
With pale underbellies
  Headlights in fog
    Like a swelling plum
Grief is a creature too tender
For the hard syntax of this world
The way babies press
against the frail walls of their throats
to prove existence
I mistake
Cradle for blade
Tomorrow for yesterday
  Is this the crimson of roadkill
Or my own hurt
To live is to hover
A breath from fracture
Smoke threading a hallway
Not knowing
    Whether it’s leaving
      Or simply learning
the edges

Vanessa Chen is a high school senior from Vancouver, Canada. Her work has been recognized by The New York Times, the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, and the League of Canadian Poets, among others. She is an alumna of the Iowa Young Writers' Studio—and she loves cheese.