The prevailing theory said every person was cut in half before conception, and those sad halves were launched down into the world to grieve, to scoot around in aching pursuit of their mirror. But you were there in the beginning when some hand refused to cleave you. Instead, the hand took your sky and curved it back on its blueness. When the cascade began, you were powerless to stop yourself from becoming a space radiant and self-contained. A planet enclosing its sun. A run of grass ramping up to the heavens, and you, reclining in the secant, stringing dandelions into loving manifolds. Someone called you anomaly when you walked alone through a crowd with a smile tugging your lips. When your dimensional stability held under pressure. You shared your dwelling with no one else, putting your arms around your gravity well and anchoring deep. Your flock of days and nights. Nothing more complete.

Sheila Dong is a nonbinary Chinese-American writer based in the desert. A graduate of Oregon State University’s MFA program, they have had work appear in Radar, SOFTBLOW, Menacing Hedge, Heavy Feather Review, and other places. Their chapbook Moon Crumbs debuted with Bottlecap Press in 2019. Find more at sheiladong.carrd.co.