#nonbinary poets

this time i have learned to give

nothing

if i want to keep

everything.

-

thinking about you.

thinking about how you probably aren’t thinking about me,

and probably haven’t for a long time.

thinking about your response

to the last text i ever sent you.

“lol k”

when i said i didn’t think we should speak anymore.

when i said i didn’t think it was healthy for either of us.

“lol k”

that’s the last thing you said to me.

four letters.

i guess that was all i was worth to you.

and i should’ve known that sooner.

should’ve read the signs.

should’ve seen the flags.

but red has always been my favorite color.

i guess i just thought you were trying to lead me closer to you

when all along you were keeping a safe distance.

all the while i was letting you get too close,

when i should’ve been cautious.

red means stop.

red means danger.

i was stupid to think otherwise.

it’s been almost a year

and it still hurts.

thinking about you.

clouds like train tracks on a sunset sea of blue, the wanting of going somewhere ending nowhere,

clouds like a distant house, a maybe home, with cotton candy walls and patches of sky for windows,

clouds like a ring of fire raging against the rising night, leaving barren trees in flames,

clouds like fading colours against neon headlights, the traffic like a blaring interruption to a story that could've felt like ours,

clouds like lovers, kissing the light one last time before the moon drowns them both.

i am a flower except my stems are limbs, trying desperately to hold on in tempting graves and merciless storms,

i am a flower except i have teeth for roots, biting down on soil supposed to be home, weathering like rocks, more blood than water,

i am a flower except my leaves are heart and lungs and muscle and beating to the tunes of their own gruesome melancholies, a rhythm more deathwish than lifeforce,

i am a flower except the sun is too bright and the moon to soft and the birdsong too akin to screaming,

i am a flower except i am

this body

and one day, one day there won't

be much of a difference.

I’m billed as The Loneliest Woman on Earth but it’s true I climbed into this cage             of my own volition             now waiting here for true love’s kiss to find me, break             the curse.

My story begins this way: I slept with a married man & his jealous witch-wife             that green-eyed bitch             spat her hex at me—

                                    if any man touches you with nought but lust                                     if any man who’s already betrothed                                     if any man who kisses you with any aim not                                     pure & true they’ll waste away & die of a broken heart.  

So I ran to the circus & said                                     I came with this cage                                     put me in it & take us away.  

            In town after town I perched in my prison, clad in black corsets &                         skirts of black lace, alone on the stage bathed in blue                         light & o I sang my true-love ache, my lonesome                         blues

                                    could you be mine & break                                                 the spell  

            & all men see a lonely lovely girl & want to be the one to break her lonesome jinx.

The men mothed to me & threw their roses hopeful at my feet, their friends shoving them closer             daring them to spend the night with the haunted house             of my body & see if they could—nudge nudge wink wink—drive the demons out             & the bravest ones paid the fee & stayed the night.  

                                    Not one of them could bride me, groom me, wrap that happy-ever-after ‘round my finger.

 For the gentle & sweet ones, I wept             rose petals & blue light & mourning veils to bury them in For the callous & cruel I had nought but a tiny tear—                         more for myself than them (good riddance! but alas, alone, again).  

Sweet or cruel, they all came                         with hope or hubris  

                        & then the moment when their want betrayed them                         when they saw the truth inside the sad blue rooms                         of my eyes & o! the heart, it can break like a bulb,                         a pop! & then a darkness.  

Yes, I traveled back & forth across America, small town to smaller, destroying amber waves                         of eligible bachelors 

Behold—             I am become a plague of locusts             I am a one-woman Dust Bowl.

  (this is an excerpt from The Loneliest Show On Earth, forthcoming from Bottlecap Press in 2020)