"When you put your old clothes on, I remember that I love you" by Audrey Beaton

You call it a game and crawl back into your chrysalis.

When you emerge, some half-formed thing,

I remember every leg and eye,

every liquid part of you

that sleeps in the shape of something else.

You ask for your name

and I kiss the thorax of you.

Sticky, where the love lives,

and I call every unmade rib by name.

Hailing from Michigan, Audrey Beaton is currently finishing their undergraduate studies at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa while interning at the Mānoa Journal: A Pacific Journal of International Writing. They will graduate in May 2024 with a BA in Korean language and a BA in English with a focus in creative writing. Their interests lie primarily in poetry, fiction, and a hybrid of the two.