Youth Poet Award Finalist: “Breath” by Ava Chen

Ava Chen is a poet and high school senior based in Massachusetts. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming with Diode, The Penn Review, The Dawn Review, and elsewhere. A 2023 Adroit Mentorship poetry mentee, she has been recognized by Columbia College Chicago, The Adroit Prizes, The Poetry Society of the U.K., and more. Ava is also the founding Editor-in-Chief of Sophon Lit and serves as Genre-Managing Editor for Polyphony Lit. Her poem "Breath" contrasts the freedom every child should have growing up with the devastating effects war has on families.

Breath

by Ava Chen

our first steps are not to run from 

but wander to

the only fires we know are stoked 

at the hearth, throats hoarse 

from song

and nothing more

we dig up tennis balls 

instead of bullets

in each sandbox striated

with bitten nails, fresh splinters

splitting each soft finger— 

wounds only for mothers to kiss,

mothers that lift each burning horizon

with bright fingers and brighter eyes,

seek futures in flyby years and secondary degrees

count by the year instead of 

by the week, hour,

breath

to air

to breath

hitched in worry

for the next meal, clutching 

silent and silenced skins

by the nape, teeth ticking like a mine

floors choked with dust and lead 

each moon a vicious searchlight

stale violence in every threadbare hole

still we dream in bodies 

instead of birds,

hold our burnt temples for skin and pray

for smaller sins, louder gods, for the blessing

to believe every star is still roaring

even when their death will just take

millennia lightyears more

to darken our mirrorlike eyes—

still we watch 

our mothers hoard shadows

in collarbones and sallow temples

so their children 

never have 

to learn to forget light