I have never come with the same solution twice.
A butterfly told me to lock the lips of my esophagus.
In 1991, an artwork called Untitled (Portrait of Ross in LA) was exhibited in the MOMA: a mountain of fun-sized candy perched against the side of a wall.
There is a chinese myth where two star cross dress lovers keep missing.
In 1972, my father held up a book & proclaimed his love for red.
A man at the bar whispers: I want to colonize you.
Viewers were encouraged to take a piece.
I expect more but trip over my soles.
You tell me I hold problems in my head, like a small rat.
A ghost is a foreigner is a devil is a memory is a reminder of a life.
My grandmother buys bags of milk & I hide them in my lungs.
A man grabs me & I smell red.
The art was exhibited in many places, each with a different configuration & a different layout, but one thing was always the same: the weight of the candy bundle, which roughly corresponds to the average weight of a human male.
When the stars come out, you point out high constellations that hang over low orbit.
Sofya Kovalevskaya: It is impossible to be a mathematician without being a poet in soul.
Sofya never had to look for a Hamiltonian cycle in Genghis Khan’s children.
Eventually, the lovers confess, but learn that one is already promised in marriage to another man—one of them falls ill & perishes.
On the other side of the world, a butterfly flaps its wings & I forget my name.
I kiss you on the hand that wrote laws to exclude my lineage.
A child rushes in & stuffs multiple handfuls of fun down his denim overalls.
In 1985, my mother lived a life & hid it from her lover.
Sometimes, I look up at the stars & count the number of ways they have led me astray.
What happens when there’s no more candy left to take?
The other lover immediately wrings herself into the grave & two butterflies emerge.
A man holds me & my lips loosen.
I gather blows in my chest & keep them as candy to teach.
My mother went into her grave & never emerged.
IVAN ZHAO is a poet, designer, and web artist based in San Francisco interested in nonlinear narratives, forms, and mechanics that reckon with digital, diasporic, and queer identity. His art interrogates computational and individual agency, and his research revolves around tools, systems, and play. His work has been published in The New River, thehtml.review, and elsewhere. When he’s not making weird things on the internet, he’s making bread and soup in the kitchen.
The art that appears alongside this piece is “New Journey, Same Guide” by JONATHAN KENT ADAMS.