Julie Chen

Julie Chen is from San Jose, CA, and lives in Brooklyn. Her poetry and prose is forthcoming/published in Hobart, CHEAP POP, IDK Magazine, and Up the Staircase Quarterly. She also makes pop music as Slime Queen. Her website is juliechen.neocities.org.

THE WHALES WILL THANK HER by Julie Chen

She seeks to save water when using the toilet. If it’s yellow, let it mellow, though she knows that can lead to malodor, so she makes sure to flush before she goes out or to bed, or if she hasn’t hydrated well and her pee is a deep autumnal mustard, like her favorite sweater. When she goes grocery shopping, she uses tote bags, of which she has many. The real challenge is to also bring those plastic bags in which one weighs produce. One can avoid them with fruits like bananas, whose peels are thick enough to shield from germs,…

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