She’s rotten as a blooming girl,

trapped in past glory, blindly swirls.

The last radiance of the setting sun

outruns her persistence.

Through the walls of tiny high heels,

The smile of the burlesque conceals.

Birds chirp, flickering cigarettes concedes.

She feeds peanuts to rats.

I’m Huang Chen, a Chinese American and a creative writing graduate student at Harvard Extension School who will get her MLA in May 2023. I have worked in a high school for a few years, interned at Regal House publishing, and am currently interning at Metamorphosis Literary Agency. I also write Middle-Grade Fantasy and New-Adult Magical Realism fiction.