the world is cruel and yet i still love you — Joann Xie

tell me,
when the shower water mixed with your tears
inside the little wooden cabin
did you hear wailing
            muffled through thin bathroom walls
could you distinguish
            if they were forty-nine or twelve
echoing out your throat or mine

*

You pick up the landline. Your mother has cancer. Book the fastest flight to your hometown. 13 hours 50 minutes. You enter the hospital, Mama can’t clutch your shaking palms any longer, she never could.

*

i’ve stuffed my heart 
with crumpled tissues
molding it back 
to before i started hating you.

*

(youngest children never outgrow the backseat.)

when she was old enough
to sit in a booster seat,
her mama behind the wheel,
she asked
why mama and baba slept in 
separate rooms.

every day i sit in the backseat.
some days i’m still in the booster chair.

*

mama,
please, tell me,    
i only felt memories–
yours and mine, 
of empty snail shells,
            beady ants hunting for remains.

but among fifteen years,
there’s still one,
where my head is tucked in your arms,
your voice in a soft lullaby,
a tune i can’t remember
            (i desperately want to).

---

 Joann Xie is a high school sophomore from San Diego, California. Her work has received a National Silver Medal and several Gold and Silver Keys from the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, and she has been recognized as a California Art Scholar. When she is not writing, she loves dancing, sketching, playing piano covers, and crocheting. Joann longs to explore the world outside the California suburbs, learning about life and finding new inspiration for her writing.