were you?

Jedidiah Vinzon

she is often in pink. when her lips curl
the sound of basketballs deforming on
the broken gym floor echo. sometimes
when i stay too long, i hear it. gunshots
wounding the air. the bleeding always comes
after. in autumn, the green grows gangrene.
she would stand above the brown remains
like neon signs above a cemetery. like
an ink blot on a new shirt. she does not
waver. only in the wind, she sways. only
when i move, she follows. at first, it is
her eyes. then, when the smiling is over,
her feet. at night, when i have forgotten her,
she slides into the silence with a squelch.
a quiet rubbing coalesces from the walls to
the roof into a pressure. a cold humidity.
water leaks like acidic spores eager for
birth. when they have reached my lungs,
she appears. first, her dress, seeping into
the water. then the net encasing her. then
her torso, all at once. until i see her. eye
sockets hollowed out. cuts around her
cheeks. hair limp as her arms are melting.
towards me. i swear i hear her say — 

then the morning comes.

she is often in pink. today, she stands
at the door. darkened scratches rooted into
her bones. her see-through skin crumbling
like overstretched dried paper. the smell
of her – acutely acrid. the geometry of her
insides accumulated at her pelvis. rotted,
rotting entrails relocating into each other.
i can hear the sloshing and the squelching.
her odour lodged firmly between my tongue
and my teeth. i try to scream but i drown in
her silence. i swear i hear her say —

i close the door. i run back to my room.
my back at the foot of my bed. the sploshing falls
moistly on the floor. like raining mops on marble.
the walls scrape against themselves into the spores.
the windows press into my eyes. my fingers
lost in the callousness of the carpet. i taste
the paint and the fungi. i feel them crawl
along the length of my larynx. my trachea locked
around my oesophagus. then i see her. in pink.
like a reflection gaining corporeality. in the nets.
like a caught milkfish learning to walk to her captor.
her eye sockets still shallow. i hear the empty gym.
the basketballs bursting into gunshots at my ears.

i’msorry(themorningcomes)i’msorry(themorningcomes)i’msorry(themorningcomes)i’msorry(themorningcomes)i’msorry—

were you?

—

Jedidiah Vinzon is studying physics at The University of Auckland. His poetry can be read in Symposia, circular, and Overcom, among many others, with more forthcoming. Recently, his poem ‘how great are nuclear bombs?’ was nominated for the 2025 Best of the Net Anthology, and his poem ‘monachopsis’. won Vellichor Magazine’s Seven Days of Poetry Contest. In his free time, he enjoys writing music for choirs and chambers, as well as playing the piano. @jayv.poetry