Self-Portrait as Sadako

            After Ring (1998)

what‘s a machine         if not

                        curtain                  to crawl

through           

      call to        curtail

            your doubt         takes a week
to be recognized                no trick

            of my tv eye     blinking

on-and-off

 perception      called

for warning

            chickened out               speaking

through        my second mouth           
`                                   nothing

      comes        translated

ocean whine

            static game                   of telephone

when you pick up        nothing

            if not punctual               primed          

for my arrival

my glittering

                        grey debut        takes

a countdown       to bring

                        myself through

smooth velvet

                        throb

humming screen                       vinyl warp

                        static burst

            electrical curse

how                 the news spreads

                                    of my arrival

            i’ll have everyone

    watching                  but bring

                        myself

                                    to you

in my most       electrifying       white

            noise       all my cords

                        cut                   short-circuiting

the curdling scream      that curls

                        me out

                                    of your system

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 Asian American Writers’ Workshop’s The Margins, Entropy, Susquehanna Review, and elsewhere. She is currently pursuing an MA in Creative Writing at the University of the Philippines Diliman.