Untitled

by Yucheng Tao

Someday, I’ll touch the light outside.
When a broken heart is picked up
and pieced together, yet still fragmented,
like a clown’s smiling face. 

The mirror shatters,
I am not yet brave enough
to confess the truth.
The essence of my being
lies in glass fragments of various shapes
scattered on the ground,
reflecting my fractured wings. 

I lack the courage to face
my darkness and the other side of my face.
I desire to smile, to face myself—
yet instead, I wear the face of a clown. 

The Dead

by Yucheng Tao

Short hair.
Dark voids.
Eyeballs in the pan,
staring.
Investigation ongoing. 

Long-haired man,
black plastic bag,
a man in a mask,
flashed down yesterday’s wet hallway. 

His coldness as
ice in the Arctic. 

pan—eyes
his—eyes 

in my daily nightmares. 

Yucheng Tao, originally from China, is a songwriting student in Los Angeles. His work has appeared in The Lake (UK), Red Ogre Review (UK), Cathexis Northwest Press, NonBinary Review (including an interview), Ink Nest, Apocalypse Confidential, The Arcanist, Academy of the Heart and Mind, and Down in the Dirt. His poetry is also featured in Synchronized Chaos, Poetry Potion, Moonstone Art Center, and Wingless Dreamer, with additional work in Spillwords and Literary Yard.