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Laura Ma

Apparitions Do Not Dream of Second Chances

My younger self is luminous, decaying in the radiation
            of dying stars. She dreams my image
 
into memory through crayon wax. Pigments streaking
            cellulose. Meteorites trailing pages
 
of a future lost to cataclysm. To her, I am the cosmic
            bottleneck, the what-could’ve-been,
 
supernovas and probabilities vortexing through phantom
            limbs. In five years, she will have no
 
shadow and I will spend millennia chasing the last of
            her sunburnt flickers. In a heatwave,
 
her skin will roughen with blisters, hands
            flinching at voices, hemoglobin
 
saturating constellations. What is memory if not the
            next iteration? Soul floating to the
 
exosphere, it loops to portals to parallel universes over
            & over again. I cradle her gossamer
 
half-lives and piece her from a million infrared timelines,
            praying that this one will listen.
 
This shared birthright, vestiges in déjà vu rewind; it
            ​whispers: We were meant to live.

Biography

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Laura Ma (she/her) is 18 and based in California. Her words have appeared in The Lumiere Review, Parentheses Journal, Claw & Blossom, Capsule Stories, and more. She will attend UC Berkeley in the fall. Find her on Twitter @goldenhr3.
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ISSN 2639-426X
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    • Issue 28
    • Issue 27
    • Issue 26
    • Issue 25
    • Issue 24
    • Issue 23
    • Issue 22
    • Issue 21
    • Issue 20
    • Issue 19
    • Issue 18
    • Serenity
    • Issue 17
    • The Audio Room
    • Issue 16
    • Issue 15
    • Issue 14
    • Play It Again
    • Issue 13
    • Issue 12
    • Issue 11
    • Issue 10
    • Issue 9
    • Issue 8
    • Issue 7
    • Issue 6
    • Hand to Mouth
    • Issue 5
    • Issue 4
    • Issue 3
    • Issue 2
    • Issue 1
  • Submissions