By Audrey Wu

because black was the color of the sky that night –
the one when you biked over from Boston, beer
bottles knocking inside your backpack – 6 miles
just to sit in my grandmother’s nursing home while
I cried. because you never let me walk on the side
of the street closest to the cars, hold the handles
on the passenger side but refuse to wear a helmet.
because we sit in stillness, hand in hand on the
edge of Mystic Lake, swans and cumulous skies
smearing into one. because watching you cry
felt like skinning my knees on the pavement,
picking the scab over and over until I was over you.
because training wheels are for cowards and I
am not afraid to kiss you in this pool-light.
because love requires trust and balance and I
am not afraid to love you, only afraid to lose you.

Audrey Wu is a high schooler from Massachusetts. For Audrey, writing serves as a coping mechanism and she focuses on writing poetry to heal. In addition to editing for a variety of literary magazines, she has attended the Kenyon Review Young Writers workshop and Iowa Young Writers studio among others.