A Misdelivered Pizza

those who ordered it must be waiting desperately,
but it has already lost its way & arrived at my door.
it was a fate i could not turn away.

the day i was delivered to the world,
no one had placed an order for me either—
the house was empty.

when my father first looked down at me,
a cloud of sand descended,
building a burial mound over his heart.
the reddest i’d ever been since birth,
the souls of the wind greeted me:
hello, red box.

i walked deep into my own eyes,
spying on the attic cats giving birth.
when the black cat bore a speckled kitten,

my mother cried as though her sight was failing.
night &day tangled together,
wiping me clean, piece by piece.
the wind’s gaze greeted me:
hello, red fate.

ooh—my red hymns, called forth by the wind!

hello, you writhing wax-born flames,
hello, shadow within the trembling shadow.
hello, echoes of my tinnitus,
ringing again someday in cafés, theaters, on sunlit beaches.
hello, cursed words running blind in the dark.
i am the red box!

many times in my life,
i devoured pizzas i never ordered,
felt happy & fell asleep without a thought.

o misdelivered me!

Jennifer Choi is a passionate high school student. Her work has previously been published or is forthcoming in Altered Reality Magazine, Academy of Heart and Mind, and Culterate Magazine, among others.