A collage of conversations between Shruti Swamy and Meng Jin

We’d video-game or anime-binge or dream aloud about a future as bright as our childhoods.

On Lisa Hsiao Chen’s Activities of Daily Living and the art that makes us see the world differently

不要以為 / 八八十月 過了還會回來 / 除非有十一月 || don’t assume that / October ‘88 will ever return / except in November

‘Skin molted like a lazy adder/while sinew pooled like glue.//Bone fractured next/like desert rose glass/then melted too.’

You said you were an ant, eyes frozen / on an indigo wave looming over the world. / (You reset every time / you move forward.)

‘We melted in amnesia, bubbled up / from the ocean, rinsed clean / of appetite, all healed, / all negated, a sequence of two spines / imitating an arrow. A jaguar loved us. / He licked where our hips had been, / and we cucooked in reply.’

‘we need to reinvent the image of tragedy for the nation everyday / or even in the everyday / get incensed or pretend to be so or else there is no exit and no future’

‘Murder is to mitosis is to mercy. / We are mostly legs too: part tendon, part pardon, kicking / or curling.’

Rage dented the silver / trashcan / “fire-crack” or “schrack”