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BACK TO VOLUME ONE // ISSUE TWO

THE TEENAGE GIRL AS VELOCIRAPTOR

ALINE DOLINH
They are the everlasting antagonists. After all –  
who else can draw blood 
with such small teeth? According to science 
they are quasi-mythic creatures, organs hushed 
behind enameled marrow, 
their bodies clinically reptilian 
yet lurid with feathers. All of them  
are curiously amorphous 
in biology, no certainty 

save for their voracious hunger.

They mystify taxonomists. What do you call 
monstrosity in miniature, a cladogram 
of split lips and sharp hands? There is 
something predatory in their 
absolute loveliness. Or is it 
the other way around?​

Observe their careful physiognomy –
half-formed wingspans, 
beaked mouths not yet cruel, but still   
that fledgling wickedness –  
the knife-bright gleam 
in narrowed eyes, the avian jut 
​of hips whetted on bones.

​RELUCTANT LOVE POEM

ALINE DOLINH
It tastes like a mouthful of eyelashes 
swimming in saltwater. Looks like 
that dying frog that sunlight sautéed 
last summer, body convulsing with flies
as it surrendered to softness. Feels like
a split lip that can’t stop bleeding,
 a deluge of baby teeth.

Watch my heart slip out, seeping wet 
like a premature birth. Observe the stain 
with procedural care, everything fibrous 
clamped down fast, but still –
that primordial unavoidability, the recurrence 
of every form. How the circle of my neck 
remains an open wound. How my skin 
always unwinds in the same shape 
for you. The worst part is how much it feels 
like something sacred.


ALINE DOLINH's work has been honored by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards and the National Student Poets Program. She is currently a poetry reader for The Adroit Journal and student at the University of Virginia, where she studies English and history.
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  • ABOUT
    • MASTHEAD
    • CONTACT
    • CONTRIBUTORS
  • ISSUES
    • VOLUME ONE >
      • ISSUE ONE
      • ISSUE TWO
      • ISSUE THREE
      • ISSUE FOUR
    • VOLUME TWO >
      • ISSUE ONE
      • ISSUE TWO
      • ISSUE THREE
      • ISSUE FOUR
  • SUBMISSIONS
  • BLOG