Two Poems

by Belinda Cai

untethering

a small child baptizing herself in sink water
my eyes dance across her messy black hair
a frame, narrow and timid and in need of salvation
eyes watching myself watch myself from the angled mirror
a recursive gaze
an infinity mirror of the mind
i detach
inhale, i am back in the womb
exhale, i am a ghost
inhale,
the hunter and the hunted
the watcher and the watched
if we are the universe perceiving itself
when does it know it can take a breath
i return, always return
to that moment in the infinite spiral of time
warm water washing over her
inhale, i am back in the womb
exhale, i am a ghost
inhale,

no need for sleep

my freneticism, a celestite
i am spellbound by her prismatic light
most enraptured, in lust, in the midnight glow
i beg her: please never leave
i am a codependent lover
but leave, leave, leave, she does
I slip and fall into the dampened earth
and somehow still land on my feet
but I miss her and I miss who she makes me
what she makes me
in the darkest hours of the night
indestructible

Belinda Cai is an L.A.-based writer and musician. She received an M.S. in Journalism from the University of Southern California. Her writing has been published in VICE, Tinder, Hobart, Car Crash Collective, House of Vlad, Burial Magazine, Dream Boy Book Club, Midcult, Bitch Media, Entropy Magazine, HNDL Magazine, and more.