pretty boy

Grace Liang

pretty boy, 
don’t you have somewhere to be
before you go up in flames? 
i know you look like sunshine but
the real deal will blister your skin
and chew through your flesh like 
an earring made of frozen mercury
so don’t fight fire with fire, honey
because underneath that varnish
skin and carved wood muscle 
i know your bones are the same
as the bones of anybody else 

pretty boy; 
don’t you have someone you trust
to stab you squarely in your back?
the throne you built from the tears
of disgraced queen bees, gold from 
their waxen vaults — it’s crumbling
so better to have a rusting blade
between ribs as proof that blood
still runs through your veins, than
to scratch your gilded head on the
marble floor; our eyes shouldn’t be
punished for your vices, too 

pretty boy. 
don’t you have something to die for
beyond the mirage in carved glass?
when we can no longer pick apart
flesh, bone, and skin, i hope you’ve a
soul left to choke out some apologies:
one for thinking you’re the Sun and
playing with Earth like a spinning top;
another for ransoming your spirit in
exchange for a home in the sky after
becoming an orphaned star, one only
born after another, first, combusts

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Grace Liang is a Chinese-Canadian teen writer from Toronto. She enjoys wasting her time on AO3 and Twitter, sleeping, and playing piano. Find her on Twitter and Instagram at @yf_grace.

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