Young Poets Magazine –

"A Hermetic Fit" by Cayden Zhang

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September 15th, 2026

Young Poets Magazine

Young Poets Magazine Contest #3 – First Place

A Hermetic Fit

by Cayden Zhang

I was a student once, which is to say           
I learned sedentary geometry of my desk
and how a spine can curve into a question mark.
 
Less sleep, less hunger, less of that otiose racket of living.
I mistook it for fidelity for some future self 
who’d thank me for this abnegation.
No one told me the future self
was the same me, only more tired.
 
It’s funny, how the small things build up—
each all nighter, each paper, each textbook
a rust of approval that never quite covered
the rancor I felt at my aimless future.
Why did it continue to rise without my permission?
 
I am lost.
 
I am lost, which is to say
a lone cog toiling, forever turning in obedience 
to power some greater machine it cannot see.
There are other cogs near. 
We are close enough for company, but we do not interlock.
Of course, they too, are busy
With their own caparisoned ambitions,
their aimless turning
toward a peroration we call graduation.
 
I was a student, which is to say
I was blessed with ambition, and cursed with the means to achieve it.
 
I am tired, so I lie down in the fit. 
There is a hawk here, perched in its eyrie,
ranting about the fecundity of rot.
Eyebags are ink stains.
 
I am still a student, which is to say
I am learning the parsimony 
of breath. How little air a coffin needs 
to feel like a room of one’s own.
 
My body grows to mold the box.
My coffin is surrounded by many others, 
and we lie in a field of holes, 
never quite touching.

About the Poet
Cayden Zhang resides in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
Read the poet's biography and Young Poets World publications on Cayden Zhang's Artist Page.

Young Poets Collection
This poem is also featured in Young Poets Collection #3, published in the Young Poets World Library.

Previously published in Young Poets Magazine:
Learning to Squint
by Olivia Walters

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