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.