"Instructions for Moving/Migrating" by Winter Yim

Box up scrapbooks and scars — art projects

thought lost, Beanie Babies thought tossed.

Dig up fossils of selves. Declutter the cross

you ironically bought. Zip through fast food

stops. Glide the Garden State, bookend

Manhattan. Let your college degree bounce

in the back of the van. Order delivery: chicken

wings and pizza. Toss the bread and cheese back

while downloading dating apps. Decorate with

anime stickers and family photos. Northern exposure,

have a pothos dying in the corner, hose choked

of sunshine and water. Slip into comfort staying

too long in this place. When Mom calls

from the hospital, be two hundred miles away.

Winter is a queer, mixed-race writer based in Massachusetts. Their writing covers themes such as home and belonging, identity, transformation, and invisibility. Their work has appeared in Breakwater Review, Sheila-Na-Gig, Stone Poetry Quarterly, and The Tuskegee Review.