on and on and on

tonight is a night for miracles

last summer was the first time i felt happy in such a hot weather going topless to the beach like what are you staring at yes they’re mine yes they’re small and they’re not all round and i’m done with hiding the fact that i’m more semi-abandoned valley than busy planet there are no skyscrapers here if you’re going to touch me please do not close your eyes no light is going to hurt your retinas, not here. the boys at the beach don’t want to touch me anyway more body hair than woman, more poppy than rose did you know poppies are considered bad weeds i have a rose tattooed on my upper right thigh maybe i should consider getting a stick-n-poke poppy on my smallest boob. so the boys at the beach will never touch me and i’m happy and kind of sad too that i’m happy because touching is probably my favorite thing i spent years yearning to be touched by men whose hands stung like bees now i know i’m into girls whose touch is a lot more like that of snow so i stop being sad because we’re lying on your bed all sweaty and exhausted by the heat of our two bodies that are both tiny and huge for this world and we stop touching for a while and just stare at each other until winter is back again what magic is this, the coming and going of seasons of the year depending on how close we want to be. so who cares about the boys at the beach, right my therapist cares more about my depression the insides of my chest care more about you i still care way too much about the shape of my chest maybe that’s why i wrote insides of my chest instead of heart it’s scary to realize there’s a heart below all of this poppy flesh i’m afraid I’ll never be a rose and you’ll never love me but my therapist says don’t settle for lovers who do not water your petals, who only want you there to clean up the dirt on their soil that’s a lie my therapist just told me to stop loving abusers but i had to make a metaphor out of it because the truth hurt way too much. the thing is summer’s back and depression seems to be gone what will i talk about to my therapist now i worry, how much will i miss her if i stop needing her depression was never gone but last summer i was finally happy to be a body to be a lesbian with a body that drags itself across the sheets of other young women’s beds i think this was the first time i put the word lesbian in a poem i’m way too fond of metaphors when it comes to hurtful truths, i guess, however i’m a lesbian with a body and I finally can say yes I’ve known shame but mostly it does not live inside of my chest anymore.

pride sits on my tongue like an unwanted guest like why are you here like who brought you here like where’s the home in all this car scrapyard. i sit on my mother’s lap like an unholy child she loves me, she loves me not her name is Margarita which is Spanish for daisy so i pluck the petals until i’m left with just thorns. my mother sits at the family dinner like an unexperienced activist when did Christmas Eve turn into a fight it’s not my aunts whom are fighting it’s me fighting against my inner will to silence her mom it’s not homophobia it’s just the saucy snacks, you eat them before you can digest love, remember? love never comes first for those of us who grew up wondering whether home was just another word for graveyard of honesty. the words of younger lonelier more unfortunate lesbians sit on my tear ducts like why do i even cry at least i do have a home at least my mother is proud but all this body’s ever known is second-hand shame like yes i do cry because hating yourself out of ignorance shouldn’t be a longer name for lucky thanks mom for being proud of me please teach me how to be the same.

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: comfort zine!

the pool casting rippling silhouettes over her skin, the smearing of shadows between the bones of porcelain hands. a parabola of a body cuts itself into water, and names it a drowning - death - salvation, a millennia of words. my skin is dripping poolwater onto tiles, onto her bared limbs.