Self Portrait by Christina Pan

A severed head, I am. Congesting the fridge. My mouth
smothers a jar of jujubes—she didn’t
cut it off. My skin marbled, my smudged eyelids
purple. Father carried this in his 
tepidity, but now I’m frozen and forgotten like mother.
My nonexistent friends will not miss me.
In front of my tongue sits uneasily an onion. We share 
purple, but it doesn’t want to: it flakes. 
Disappointments dribble through the night.

Let there be fire, please. Fire 
to erase the frost. Fire
to annihilate me. The most 
macabre scene I already 
smelt. The light I last saw
lit her face when she 
opened the door to me. 
She drank hungrily from a 
juice carton. We locked 
eyes. She barfed.

I had lived my life exactly the way
it takes to end up as a head.

The onion jittery, 
sturdy, 
repetitive.

About the Poet:

Christina Pan is a writer from New York City.