Something beautiful in a Vuong book

Hamza Ahmad Khan

The young writer scribbles in the margins of an Ocean Vuong book, and from that annotation rises this poem. The writer is also a graphic artist/photographer; the accompanying visual is also by him.

Artwork by Hamza Ahmad Khan

I confessed

something beautiful in a Vuong book

annotation: I told the page

that I was scared

of my mother’s passing. I asked it

“can I trade my tenderness for

more life to my mother?”

I didn’t wish to sound

greedy—no, consider that

I was only doing this for her.

Only so that I don’t become the son

who writes about his mother’s

passing

because as beautiful as that book may be

the cost of making it

is too great to bear.

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Hamza Ahmad Khan is an A-Levels student and poet from Lahore, Pakistan. His poems have appeared in UvA Amsterdam’s literary journal, Writer’s Block Magazine and Toronto Metropolitan University’s journal, White Wall Review.