THE WHITE GIRL AFTER ME
wears flowers in her hair. exudes nourishment, occupies space without questioning. lays claim to being. throws parties with bright techno music and actually enjoys it. disagrees, freely. she lies naked in your bed and farts in colour. it is a position i am decidedly unenvious of, and yet something, somewhere, is stillborn. it sputters and spills inside of me. i listen to my therapist, who is also white and grunts distantly whenever i say the word intersectionality. i am fisting the counter-narrative and it returns a relentless nothing. my forearms are soiled. i’ll bet she knows how to use a fish knife. how to opt (regrettably, of course) out of discourse. and how to ski. in my dreams i am squeezing into her skin, a pair of too-tight jeggings, while people are loudly fucking in the changing room next to mine. it splits halfway up my back. looking down, my shins have turned magenta in protest. someone, over oat milk flat whites, tells me that decolonisation is a praxis. maybe deleting vsco is practice. maybe michelle yeoh is practice. or maybe it is deep-throating my worth, holding it flaccid in two hands, pleading for it to stand.
Kimberley Chia is Singapore-born and Paris-based. Her poetry has been published in Sine Theta Magazine, Clare Market Review, and elsewhere. When not writing, she is exploring movement, working at an international organisation, and/or cooking elaborate soups. Find her on Twitter @kimberleycq or Instagram @catchingpenumbras.
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