Resignation of a Photographer


Haolun Xu

 

i.
I have formally ended my career as a photographer.
This is a neutral statement, no, a natural statement.
Don’t see this is a tragedy. I have grown too beautiful,
I am finally beautiful.
My pink hair has blossomed, and I’m endlessly supplied with this joy.
The crowning of the new Fairy Queen, not the decay of an angel.

This is cavalry.
no, not loss.
This is the horses galloping into the grass,
the earth giving way, the flowers cannot hold the bedrock any sooner,
of what I can feel for myself.

I’m going home, I’m going to the place
where my mother knows. The suffering will be diffused with tension.
There will be a repose for rest, and a memory.
Here, I will leave you my old armor.
A $3,200 camera, several bundles of film. If you buy it all, it’ll come cheaper.

 

ii.
The woman in question transforms. The plumage shakes,
her shape flickers and then becomes what it needs to. A bird,
a heron – a seagull – a master –
she flies off to the following flock. They melt into the sunset with resolution.

We stare, fixed at this sight. Not hands, but the breaths are held together.
We are left confused in our blindness.
There is no happiness left in sight. There is no happiness left in sight.

 


Haolun Xu is 24 years old and was born in Nanning, China. He immigrated to the United States in 1999. He was raised in central New Jersey and is currently studying Political Science and English at Rutgers University.

 

 

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