Up the Staircase Quarterly
  • Home
  • Nominations
  • About
  • Submit
  • Archives
  • Support
  • Home
  • Nominations
  • About
  • Submit
  • Archives
  • Support
Search
Picture
"Anxiety" by Larissa Monique Hauck

Ode to a Prom Dress by Senna Xiang

​Prom dresses should be
               criminalized, their chiffon bodies
chandeliered, christened, chain-smoked in a cell.

Listen, our gravesite has room
               for only eight, so seat yourself elsewhere. I see
a golden namecard declaring your death.

My neckline is for a sweetheart, the boy that my mother still thinks
               I am dating, the one whose friends nominated me
for Cheater Court. Too often now, I say

I am literate in love. I decode the sweat
               that cursives the canvas of the back of his neck:
No baby, sorry baby, it wasn’t me baby, I love you baby. Baby I don’t

know how much longer I’ll stay
               in this town. An aphorism of suburbia:
your crimes silence themselves as long as you

stay. At this point, I am hollowlight blackmailed
               from the bodies I used to inhabit. Unclaimed
by the sharp pop of a Boylan’s bottle cap, every bubble a lonely beacon.

Each sleeve a single, withered tulip. A microscope’s heat
               turns the petal to dust. We listen to Lana Del Rey and watch Clueless and
wonder if we’ll ever be part of that imprecise Americana. I’m

sorry I lie the way I love, better in the dark and
               better with strangers. Three threadbare love songs later,
we are still buried at this awful table with grief as our centerpiece.

The culprit is still on the loose. The victim has left
               too many clues behind, a mystery sheared
on the dance floor. Shrimp cocktail at sixteen

makes us feel all grown-up but it’s only
               the name. My stomach bulges out from
underneath the drop-waist bodice.

I slip out to the bathroom for a while. The bluish light
               blossoms like a bruise across the tight, tattooed
skin of the stall. It guards me, my body. My skirt

scrapes the floor, its silhouette no
               wider than my hands this                        much
apart to symbolize how much I loved you. It notches

my legs, numbers my days, narrates
               my quintessential high school experience.
Cut like a bias, I am an animal wounded.

Here are the ways I’ve hurt
               all the men in my life. Except I
am not the same girl I was last winter, and I do

not owe them entitlement. I can’t tell
               if I am the source of love
or just a mirror. I am the incident ray

and his reflection is rough and ragged. Never mind
               those boys. I am in love with [ ] who smells like TV
static and the stale air con and those saintly singing

police sirens. There is a vague suggestion of a stain
               on the waistline of my prom dress. It hangs
between my mother’s old leather jacket and my cadaveric crimes.

Shroud for the superficial. After graduation, I bring
               my hand up against its lethal shine, a beckoning
blade that solders my skin shut. I cannot afford the luxury

of a cover-up. I cannot afford the pleasure
               of a confession. I am the calculating courier
of all my future crimes. I categorize all my crimes like a receipt––
​               knowing that there is no return policy.

Senna Xiang is a teen writer. Her work is published in Gasher Journal, Peach Magazine, Superfroot Magazine, and other lovely places.

Larissa Monique Hauck is a queer visual artist who graduated from the Alberta University of the Arts in 2014, where she received a BFA with Distinction. Her artwork has been featured in multiple regional and national group exhibitions as well as a growing number of international exhibitions. She has been selected for inclusion in events such as Nextfest 2018 (Edmonton, AB), Nuit Rose 2016 (Toronto, ON), and the 9th Annual New York City Poetry Festival 2019 (New York, US). Her drawings and paintings have also been featured in publications such as Creative Quarterly (US), Wotisart Magazine (UK), Minerva Rising (US), and various others.
Picture
© 2022 Up the Staircase Quarterly
  • Home
  • Nominations
  • About
  • Submit
  • Archives
  • Support