exfoliation
Yong-yu Huang
we were cross-legged on the twin xl,
soaked in k-cup coffee, buzzfeed quizzes
& pinterest boards & we laid out
improvised scale models of the venue on
the dorm room floor,
highlighters for neon-eager guests &
a lanyard for the aisle. drunk on mini-fridge
wine & choreography to for the longest time
culled from youtube videos, high on
dry-erase marker & the sweet perfume of
love. we watch as it hovers on the windowsill
like a baby bird & i watch as it mixes with the
skunk drifting up from the stoned kids,
the stench of stone reality that hangs
over the quad. & it rots, all the way through.
& ferments, into bitterness. see, not all
scenes from a college wedding can be protected
with the hardened pretty shell of
engagement-ring-glitter or the rose-colored-haze of
alcohol, even if glitz & blush are embedded in the
color scheme. i know what you think about love
& i think that you will fall out of it, & into
a caricature of pre-midlife crisis—
then the king & the queen went back to the green
but you can never go back there again.
& i will fall out with you & down into an
abyss of ruined romantic-cyncism, veins filled with
dried-out flowers, inner monologue of
the wedding march in a minor key; a half-
smushed fondant bride and groom buried in
the chest cavity. everything is
cliche here: borrowed tradition
& borrowed time & billy joel, no matter
how much you tried to resist, or at least
you insisted that you did.
YONG-YU HUANG is a Taiwanese teenager whose work has been previously published by The Heritage Review, Eunoia Review, and The Rising Phoenix Review, among others.