At the beginning of the road was a sign marking the end of it.
We sat down beside the post, our feet sinking through piles of leaves.
Off in the distance I could make out a basketball court at the top of a hill.
There was a turned-off boombox and a group of boys playing pickup.
They were talking about how much they hated each other, though their voices were full of love.
Isn’t it funny, I asked, how you can hear the love in their voices?
Whose voices? you responded.
Then you said I was being cryptic again and started to cry.
Because it was summer, I woke up beside you believing the day would be perfect—
beginning with a ripe avocado and ending with the low hum of foreign music.
The sky streaked a flimsy orange; I turned to you with a look that was unnameable.
You held out your arm between us, but there were no animals who could bring over their noses.
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Maddie Kim is a PhD student in English at UC Berkeley. Her work appears or is forthcoming in They Rise Like a Wave: An Anthology of Asian American Women Poets, Evergreen Review, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, The Journal, and elsewhere.
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image: Amanda Rabaduex is a poet and writer based out of Knoxville, TN. When she has writer’s block, she plays with watercolors and a Canon EOS 90D. Find her on Twitter @ARabaduex or on her website amandarabaduex.com.
Rejection Letters 