We Make - Elena Zhang

We are born making, with glue teeth and scissor fingers. We make life, no, love, no, we don’t know what we mean, we are tongue-tripped and lip-leaked. We’re empty, I mean we’re full, spilling over to baptize you with holy water moon splash. We grow hands on our backs and flap clap, entering the cosmos while you run from us, but we made you. Put your hands on our hands, slip inside our ouroboros so we can be hungry again, so we can turn your wishes into pennies and hand out the copper on our tongues. Our dreams are sticky, salty, pockmarked with glitter like the whites of your eyes. We sip-soak and we bite-burn, we open the door to hell for you, please won’t you come in, because we are the final girls, and we live, no, I mean, we laugh.

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Elena Zhang is a Chinese American writer and mother living in Chicago. Her work can be found in HAD, The Citron Review, Ghost Parachute, and Lost Balloon, among other publications. She is a Best of the Net nominee and was selected for Best Microfiction 2024.