‘Apology Unraveled Before Burning’

Danny McGrath is a queer writer and visual artist aiming to bridge space and time with body and mind, connecting with and reflecting on experiences of life, love, good, evil, hate, hope, and sometimes the extreme lack of all thereof.

Apology Unraveled Before Burning 

Golden Shovel on I Hate It Everywhere by Evan Wang 

& her footsteps the same. So here I was again, drawing all

the red thread out of my body. Over 

morning tea, I flinched like a bullet as the children

grabbed my arm. My family will not let me skip 

this: the cuts in my stomach, cold music, hands atop

a floor as red as pomegranates, a nameless 

girl under a wilting box. A fraying red dress & the dogs,

dull like black & white, too old to feel & 

listen now to their own voices wailing like soldiers

in war. Ma, this is when I tell you I was there. 

So I undressed her to hold her ketchup-stained sleeves— are

you listening? It is still not warm enough

here & she is the shape of the missing spaces 

in my home, strings like floating needles. It is this, I say to 

you. You, pulling the red out of her arms, cannot bear to die,

still. This— I mean, this water, I say, I will drown

in.

Cady Wu is a poet, writer, and artist of all sorts based in the Seattle area. She is a seventeen-time Scholastic Art & Writing Awards winner, and her work has similarly been recognized by Saints & Fleurs and the Chinese American Citizens Alliance, among others. She ultimately aspires to use her works to express the sentiment of being humanly beautiful. In her free time, she enjoys stargazing, baking, and hugging her tabby cat.