Krysta Lee Frost

Self-Assessment


Have you scratched yourself on purpose?

My love              hungry              as an ocean         as an ache        as a hook        
             I dug             out of my face           rusted              out of           my restlessness                    
ran back         to the source                I opened         its tap         positioned my mouth             
                               and drank            and drank         and drank



Prevented a wound from healing?

            If so     then I     bit off      the stem      diffused the situation      cut the thread      concealed
the wound         I made         I was there       at the scene      I was the soft stinging       memory of      
                        salt       I made myself        taste        the inflections      of self-
             perception        took my hands        to my face      and pressed down      on my reflection

Krysta Lee Frost is a mixed race Filipino American poet who halves her life between the Philippines and the United States. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Likhaan: The Journal of Contemporary Philippine Literature, The Margins, Berkeley Poetry Review, Hobart, Nashville Review, and elsewhere.