Qianqian Yang | Inheritance
Squatting over the plastic tub
that spits up soap like a stone-
cold drunk, I scrub the yellowish scum
off my favorite pair of panties.
The pastel bows dangling
like the chiming of church bells
to mark the start or end of a life.
My mother sits across from me,
the grim line of her mouth my sentence.
Weekly we beat them into submission:
the stains we mean to separate
from the rest of our lives.
With time, they fold and grow
becoming private shame, the leakage
of sex, the squeamish sludge
of want. At the doctor's office,
the woman says to pull the sky
of the blue cotton gown across
my chest, to lay bare on my back
and spread wide. She reaches
inside with metal pincers
and before the pain I know
will come I close my eyes,
Stop. I walk into winter
a scolded child, desperate
to fill the mind with any feeling
but what the body requires.
In bed with someone whose
love or longing I can believe
most nights, I ask to turn off
the lights. And when at last
the act is over, when I can
finally rest, I slide a finger
down the solemn rolling hills
of cheek and collarbone and chest,
travel the long, languid ravine of skin
through the divot of my belly,
brush across the tumbleweed
as desert wind, when finally I reach
the still-wet folds, in that quiet cave
I touch myself over and over again.
that spits up soap like a stone-
cold drunk, I scrub the yellowish scum
off my favorite pair of panties.
The pastel bows dangling
like the chiming of church bells
to mark the start or end of a life.
My mother sits across from me,
the grim line of her mouth my sentence.
Weekly we beat them into submission:
the stains we mean to separate
from the rest of our lives.
With time, they fold and grow
becoming private shame, the leakage
of sex, the squeamish sludge
of want. At the doctor's office,
the woman says to pull the sky
of the blue cotton gown across
my chest, to lay bare on my back
and spread wide. She reaches
inside with metal pincers
and before the pain I know
will come I close my eyes,
Stop. I walk into winter
a scolded child, desperate
to fill the mind with any feeling
but what the body requires.
In bed with someone whose
love or longing I can believe
most nights, I ask to turn off
the lights. And when at last
the act is over, when I can
finally rest, I slide a finger
down the solemn rolling hills
of cheek and collarbone and chest,
travel the long, languid ravine of skin
through the divot of my belly,
brush across the tumbleweed
as desert wind, when finally I reach
the still-wet folds, in that quiet cave
I touch myself over and over again.
Qianqian Yang is a Chinese American writer. Born in Guangzhou, China and raised in Texas, she now lives in Brooklyn. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in History of Art & Architecture from Harvard University.
Haley King, also known by their artist name GRVNGE LESTAT, is a Chicago based LGBTQ+ mixed media artist who primary uses illustrative methods to construct their body of work and combines that with digitally manipulating their own photography to achieve an effort to create their artistic world that houses themes of hauntingly provoking atmospheres.
Instagram @grvnge.lestat
Tik tok @grungelestat
Instagram @grvnge.lestat
Tik tok @grungelestat