2 AM Star Stories by Allegra Chen

Poetry for abnormal times on light, bloody-toothed survival, and fighting the good fight. Core inspiration during normal operations: Voids, Almosts, and O/others. The Love that lasts and the Love that was supposed to. Immortalizing the godlike in the mundane. Dancing along the edge of the Wonder. The outskirts are always more fascinating than the almostpeace within. Posts remain sporadic, but the drafts are numerous. Thank you so much for checking out my writing. It means a lot. Archived Scribblings

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And yet look at us all making it

despite despite despite

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Tell me your resistance, even if only continuing existence.

~ Allegra Chen // poemsbyallegra

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2020-?

may the world we love so deeply return

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Say it with me:

Love will save the world

again and again and again and again

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Whether or not you find reasons for living

reasons for living will keep finding you

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what is the hardest thing someone can do? they asked.

she took a deep breath and said, deciding day after day to stay tender in a profoundly broken world. // Allegra Chen // “The Hardest Thing”

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And yet look at us all making it

despite despite despite

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In times so hopeless look at all the people doing what they can to keep the world from falling apart

"The Helpers" // poemsbyallegra

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Come love this world with me

"The Scariest Thing You Can Do (2025 Edition)" // poemsbyallegra

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Nothing is magic so much as looking at you in hotel rooms, my bedroom with lamps turned low to hide from the neighbors, and marveling that I get to have you, experience your vast and unending love,

turned towards me.

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The Last Recess

At some point, all of us had one last recess. Our teachers were kind enough to point it out that day so we'd take care to remember. Well, I don't remember what I did for those fading golden twenty minutes, but it came and went all too soon, breathless and tinged with importance because they said so. And then we lined up, filed back indoors, put it all away, took out our notebooks, and started working.

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Seaweed

In high school our imperfections were on display, as artless as a child tripping at a wedding. I had acne thick on my face like a ruby-encrusted mask. Cassy Larner had long dirty-blonde hair cut to one length and a yellow stain on her front tooth, a beacon every time she spoke. We were friends, the ones you later learn were acquaintances only but you willed it to be more than that because the worst thing in high school was to be friendless.

She was at my house. My mom, in the kitchen, suggested offering her seaweed— you know the kind— roasted seaweed, overlapping fragments of olive green pressed paper-thin into sheets I loved holding up to the light to see it filtering through.

“Would you like some seaweed?” I asked Cassy with appropriate amounts dutifulness and enthusiasm, probably pulling out one of the light green packages from our narrow pantry. Within: the crunchy, salted, delightful things. I couldn’t wait to share them.

“Seaweed?” she replied. Her face scrunched up saying: dissection day in biology class, fresh dog shit on a blazing August sidewalk. I could see the stain on her front tooth: a sun in a cloudy sky, a fresh urine stain, the center of a daisy, a leaf its tree had given up on, offensive, offensive, offensive.

I put the package back.

Several years later, they decided it was time to make Asian snacks trendy, to look past our apparent eating of cats and dogs. Roast seaweed now lines the shelves at Trader Joe’s, the pallets at Costco, you name it. Because they decided it was now cool and thus it was.

We’ve lost touch. Cassy, have you tried it by now? Do you remember? Do you still have that stain on your tooth? If we met again, would you show up with an open pack in hand, yellow stain replaced by salted olive-green specks, saying “I was wrong, I was wrong all along?" My fingers won't stop crossing, especially since nobody is truly themselves in high school where imperfections remain so on display.

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Every life is sacred. Yes— Yes— even yours.

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I'd much rather be cozy in my hobbit hole right now yet here I am because you didn't know where to draw the line

— Millennial Protest Signs That Should Exist, No. 1

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Designed

With thanks to Dr. Ben Ollivere and Bill Bryson Put down that knife, my friend. Don't let your life be defined by how much your mind craved the wet cathartic burn of a blade.

Put down that gun, sweetheart. As far as final moments go, a loved one's hand against your temple feels so much better than a tube of cold metal with your index finger ready to do the Heimlich.

Put down that rope, darling. It's more similar to you than you think. Listen close and you'll hear it say, I, too, am made up of so many strands, a complex thing treated and twisted into something simpler, easier to understand. You ask me to sever your life but you're forgetting I've always been a tool for keeping things together. Get down from that ledge, honey. They say many survivors feel regret while falling for having jumped and it's such a long way down, too long to feel such remorse eating you from the inside out. Did you know, my friend, that human wrists have something called a fascial sheath making it that much harder to empty your lifelines? Did you also know it's difficult to end your life by jumping because our legs become crumple zones that save the parts above? Turns out, we are designed not to die. And someone up there did good at protecting us against our blindest moments so we can be here for our best ones. So put it down. Put it down. Put it down and tell me everything.

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To be family is to forgive and forgive and forgive and forgive and forgive and forgive

- "Ad Nauseam" // poemsbyallegra

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My life is not as soft as I want

But it is still beautiful - "Mantra" // poemsbyallegra