Three Poems | Jennifer Choi

annotations in a semiotics class

In my world, there are more humans than people,
& i wonder how many
i could truly love in between.
Outside felt warmer than in that winter,
& they said the first snow would fall soon.

Burying my nose in my scarf,
i caught a scent i knew by heart.
It was the kind of winter
i wouldn’t mind returning to,
an empty hallway in late December,
quiet as a held breath.

Snow—

if there’s someone to meet it with,

then even if it stings,

even if it doesn’t,

the light still blinds,

sharp as a flake of ice on the tip of your nose.

Snow settles softly on the scarf.
Imagining the weight of it,

i find myself back in the classroom.
From the farthest desk,
i pull my chair close,
press my cheek against the cool surface,
& look past the window.

Somehow, the snow fills the pane,
uneven & dazzling—
like the colored sands of an ant farm.

White.
Cold brilliance.

When i tell strangers who i am,
time dissolves like snowflakes,
melting but never gone.

When the snow stops,
i’ll undo my scarf,
slip it quietly
into a desk that isn’t mine.

Sashimi

Beyond the world, would you rather watch
my organs laid bare,
or savor the taste of raw flesh?
A fish falls on the stairs,
spilling its broth.
I see your head as a pot of spicy stew.
Old stories never had much to eat;
does time grow louder
as it grows old?

When the knife severs the spinal cord of a sea bream,
it is the moment I stopped believing in anything.
Where did the power go—
that force that just moments ago
made its tail tremble to escape my steps?
You, who knew the depth of the spine so well,
do you even know what a spine truly is?

When did you cast aside that untouched tail,
tossed carelessly into the water basin?
You always step onto the hearth first,
each footfall seeking the ends
of paths that neither stretch nor exist.
And yet, outside the water,
you only sing of the sea.

As I chew on raw flesh,
the word flesh on my tongue,
a sting of saltwater rises from my lips.
Wherever humans tread,
there are stairs—
full of mold, full of ants,
mocking the dryness of steady steps,
slicing through the knees of the sea as they return.

And out there, beyond the flesh I loved
but never trusted,
you still don’t know, do you?
That the salt in my blood
& the tremor of your tail
were the same all along.

a rehearsal for vanishing diagonals

i cross

nothingness

through nowhere.

will you walk diagonally to the center of the stage?

the diagonal stops and cries for a moment. when did a trickle become a straight line? only until death fits perfectly.

pretending to be dead.

i feel like the shoes i’ve left behind. but shoes?

throwing my slippers aside.

try acting like this. with a gun like this, and with your temple like that, at this distance between you & me,

let’s rest from despair for a moment. the diagonal sits on a round chair & cries again. when did a trickle become a curve?

i was nothing,

but will you walk offstage in a violet hue?

violet, you say?

the diagonal walks toward the diagonal, and cries a little. can i come to you?

am i doing this right?

i’ll give you a rise & fall.

like an ankle snapped on a rooftop,

like a violet,

the diagonal walks away. until vanishing becomes precise.

Jennifer Choi is a passionate high school student. Her love for poetry began at an early age, and she finds inspiration in exploring themes of identity, love, and the complexities of the human experience through her writing.