Text Me

By Amy Zeng

Dying rose emoji,

Rosa of the Rosacea.

When picked, you are as wobbly and

unsteady as ruby jelly.

Sugared perfume drowns your

Blood-biting perennial roots.

Your full-bodied fragrant nectar

and velvet rouge ink dries up

as Cupid’s arrow streams by

shattering your crystalized petals.

Upside down smile emoji

watching the seconds tick on the clock.

Everything unravels,

brain buzzing with a neon hum.

Jumbled, inverted giggles

sound more like shrieks in my

disfigured state.

And plastered timelessly, with devilish sarcasm

an eerie dripping grin resides

on my mockingly mismanaged face.

Peach emoji,

chubby, blushed cheeks, pale as

crème brûlée.

Drizzling prunus persica juices stain the

pearlescent gap-toothed smile that

bites tenderly into fuzzy coral skin.

When peeled, a little naked cry

and acidic drips erupt like magma

from the curvy, sundrenched nugget.