Noreen Ocampo
In which I am cast in a Studio Ghibli film
I am drawn in a side character’s uncertain lines, cursed
to flimsy ankles & tipping over. I still bike to school
because I have to, because Mom & Pop are running
a florist-bakery-café combination. I smell like burnt butter
& coffee beans, which makes everyone forget that we also
sell flowers. I am seventeen & having a quarter-life crisis
that only pays me in my best friend’s exasperation
as he sits in front of me in class. He sighs like he practices
his perfect exhales in the mirror & is drawn with the charisma
of a main character whose clothes are always
suspiciously crisp. I have been in love with him my whole life.
But he’s stuck in a love triangle with the class president
& the news co-anchor whose teeth literally twinkle
when she smiles, so I’m surprised when he bikes home
with me. One day, he tells me he’s set on moving oceans
away after graduation & I pause in the middle of the street
because there are only twenty-three minutes until the credits roll
& I’m not sure how we’ll patch this up in time. He laughs,
sparkling with cherry blossoms & afternoon light, &
for a moment, we’re more than a collection of penciled-in lines.
to flimsy ankles & tipping over. I still bike to school
because I have to, because Mom & Pop are running
a florist-bakery-café combination. I smell like burnt butter
& coffee beans, which makes everyone forget that we also
sell flowers. I am seventeen & having a quarter-life crisis
that only pays me in my best friend’s exasperation
as he sits in front of me in class. He sighs like he practices
his perfect exhales in the mirror & is drawn with the charisma
of a main character whose clothes are always
suspiciously crisp. I have been in love with him my whole life.
But he’s stuck in a love triangle with the class president
& the news co-anchor whose teeth literally twinkle
when she smiles, so I’m surprised when he bikes home
with me. One day, he tells me he’s set on moving oceans
away after graduation & I pause in the middle of the street
because there are only twenty-three minutes until the credits roll
& I’m not sure how we’ll patch this up in time. He laughs,
sparkling with cherry blossoms & afternoon light, &
for a moment, we’re more than a collection of penciled-in lines.
Biography
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Noreen Ocampo (she/they) is a Filipina American writer and poet based in Atlanta. She is the author of the forthcoming micro-chapbook, Not Flowers (Variant Literature, 2022), and her poems can also be found in {m}aganda Magazine, Taco Bell Quarterly, and Hobart, among others. She edits for Marías at Sampaguitas and the COUNTERCLOCK blog and studies at Emory University. Say hi on Twitter @maybenoreen!
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