KJ Li

Light, as I Have Perceived It

In the deepest mouth of the ocean, the world’s unbearable
weight grows so deep, its dark so large, it would destroy
any human gesture. Our fiercest instruments

offer only foreign fragments that I above interpret:
creatures who move through the constant crush
of what sustains them, wearing hideous teeth

to crush my teeth, pulsing hearts to fit inside
my heart. In the world above water, a heron shatters
the sun’s long glimmering gullet and emerges vicious

& victorious—in its fist, a gleaming fish slapping
itself uselessly against shallow sky in protest
or entreaty. Or, from another view: a scrap of light

trying to return to source. Deep below, creatures
who pass lifetimes without knowing light save
what they themselves can summon: skin-light

to lure more beautiful beasts, which my human eyes
make into an offering; wound-light which poses a question
to which they and I do not answer. The home

light makes of any body that is opened enough
to receive it is the closest I can come
to beauty. Wielding the instruments against

myself, I found the best way to vanish is not
through the obstruction of light, but by dissolving
into it. The question: how & why to live a life

without learning & relearning more brilliant
means of leaving. In another life perhaps I, alongside
the beasts below, would sacrifice illumination for a fragment

of a world unpricked by our knowing. From light,
to return to this: a black so hungry & complete
no living eye can perceive where animal ends

& becomes the dark.

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KJ Li is an LGBT+ Chinese-American raised in central Texas. She currently lives in Washington, D.C., where she takes long walks and misses the family cat. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Shade Journal, Overheard Lit, Chestnut Review and others—more can be found at https://kjli.carrd.co/.