roadkill

By Robina Nguyen (@robina.nguyen)

i learned the shape of my shadow

by pressing my forehead to the gravel,

rock-sharp like splintered molars between

my lips. a wet nose blackened, whimpers

sliding from a cut throat.

my mother said you can bleach blood out of

anything if you’re quick enough. she meant

the carpet, but i heard the metaphor stretch thin—

a rubber band between spread fingers. i

thought of how I used to squeeze my eyes shut

until stars burst behind my eyelids, how I’d wish

for the aftermath to be softer, but then

i remember the first time i saw my reflection

in the hood of a wrecked car: a face in

crumpled aluminium, caught between impact

and inertia, a breath held just too long, car

clock ticking too slowly. i’m telling you this because

i want to know if i was the windshield or

the stone. i want to be the hands that peel back

the wreckage, the mouth that names each

jagged thing before it’s swept away.

Robina Nguyen is a student at North Toronto Collegiate Institute. She is the Editor-in-Chief of The Outland Magazine and a researcher at the Canadian Multicultural Inventors Museum. Her work is featured or forthcoming in the Yale Daily News, West End Phoenix, Shameless Magazine, Disobedient Magazine, The Monarch Ranger, Overachiever Magazine, Queerlings Magazine, Ricepaper Magazine and more.