Internal Sunshine of Spots

By Amanda Tan

I scribbled mad men
in my diary, ripped pages

deep when I moved home.
I don’t know why

I scraped my fingernails
until coughing butterflies flew out,

forced generic Prozac
into my third eye, and sipped

discount Popov to rebuild plastic
dust piles on your galaxy grave.

Light daggered each freckle,
I recycled every ray to hide you

but the payoff didn’t include
sunscreen. So at five cents a pop

and increased risk of skin cancer,
my shoulders keep burning

smear black for you.