Vanessa Chen

Vanessa Chen is a high school senior from Vancouver, Canada. Her work has been recognized by The New York Times, the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, and the League of Canadian Poets, among others. An alumna of the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio, Vanessa also edits for Polyphony Lit—and she’s a devoted cheese lover. 

Easy read of the poem in the image above:

body as a house adrift

it never begins with nothing:
ribcage as rafters,
cavities swelling in the liminality that sits
between the sofa and family portrait, where we
pretended happiness. receipts from last weekend
left yellowing like fingernails on the countertop.
if you suppress your breath quietly enough,
you can hear the crackle of granola that is
your insides feeding on themselves in the dark.
how quickly elbows turn push into shove
& knees learn the angle between bend and break.
this house is no longer where we left it,
caught unanchored on a river wet with hunger,
barely buoyed. don’t be mistaken:
loneliness is not something outmaneuverable.
no, it is not enough to be optimistic.
yes, grief arrives belated in the past-tense. &
the walls bloated to stay above water,
even when the river asked for blood.