Starvation Offerings – a poem by Molly (Siyu) Chen

Starvation Offerings

I offer it up. Yes,
I offer the fibrous red meat,
the flakes of species older
than the humankind,
the milk of what’s holy
and unholy, to this
altar. I gouge out a part
of my soul and hold it
up to you. A glistening
nimbus of spirit in a
decanter glazed with
blood. It rots.
The darkness of existence
overflows and drips on
my bare foot. It crawls. It grows.
It grows. It rises. It floods this
temple like a tsunami and it
washes over me. The door is
sealed shut. No one gets out.
Not even me.

I say my prayers with black
tides up to my chest. I have
not drowned, not yet.
Sunlight escapes into this
cold chamber through gilded
foliage. It blinds me, although
my eyes are closed. I recite
psalms written by no one
to placate the grumbles in
my cleaved soul. I wade
the waters for that golden
apple, that staff atop the altar.
Psalms become bubbles,
breaths become suffocation,
but my hands are firm. So close,
so unreachable. Is it water, 
or is it a holy relic? In
a stupor, I hear oratorios,
storms, chewing, birds, 
bell tolls. I wake up
in orange blossoms.

Molly (Siyu) Chen is a student at Wellesley College and an alumna of Interlochen Arts Academy and the Kenyon Young Writers Workshop. Her work has previously been published in The Wellesley Review and by TABLOID Press. She has been recognized by the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers and Write the World.