Garden State

Dennis Zhang

Hightstown, NJ

Peddie School

Poetry

mother,

when i was three, i danced

in your golden marigold fields. your fecund bosom

thawed winter’s lust for my cashmere skin. your smile

ushered spring’s wistful gaze, beckoning the Yeoman

to your doorsteps, bringing their soiled garments and

flirtatious talk of expansion. i was naive to believe that

these Suitors had endowed your dew-jeweled gown when

your brow shriveled and your cheeks hollowed. at

age six, i trekked to the edges of your

silhouette to frolic about your shores.

gleaming, lucent Hudson waters

tarnished, where was your spare

change? when i was nine, you smote

me for the first time. your fissured epidermis

shattered mine, victim to your mercurial,

four-season personality. by age twelve, i finally

found you balled up in the living room, besieged by

your acidic tears and charred cigarettes, kindling delirious

inferno to your barren, mutagenic womb: defective Oaks and

their evergreen, retarded petals. through sullen whimpers, we

embraced, but my learning eyes could not desert your blackened

petroleum veins, your excavated, barren skeletal frame, your

tattooed torso of abusive knuckles crunching flesh. just once

more, i yearned for the familiar ambrosial scent of your

rosy exhale, but your lungs reeked the smoke-

stained odor of

rotten

marigold

bile.

EDITORIAL PRAISE

So much to unpack here. Garden State uses the symbol of the heavenly garden in the beginning to allude to youth and rather coils and transitions into what it really feels like to leave the garden, and face the abominations and atrocities of the world without mother's dress to veil you.

Dennis Zhang currently attends Peddie School in Hightstown, New Jersey, where he will graduate in 2020. He is the co-editor-in-chief of his school’s art and literary magazine and is fascinated by the intersection between the sciences and humanities. As an avid runner, he also loves spending time with Mother Nature.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR