The first time I heard the word
Lesbian
I was 8 years old and
They came from lips I'd just kissed.

I thought it was swearing,
That if her mother
Had heard her say it
she would be grounded for a week.

When it sits in my mouth,
It still feels heavy,
And my stomach churns the way it did
When I skipped class.

I'm not the only one who,
Growing up,
Thought sexuality was insulting,
And struggled to find myself there.

But I still feel lost,
And sometimes I'm convinced that
The words I think are the worst
Are the ones which fit best.

Lisa Nelle
had two names
like a pornstar.

She'd put her makeup on and stick all this blackness on
under her eyes
like she was holding night
in bags.

We watched Hey Arnold! DVDs at five in the morning,
and smoked the whole place up.

Sometimes her and Alexis would go in the back room.

Alexis never liked me.

Lisa Nelle had this way of looking at you
where she'd take her eyes
and she'd work her way
down to your stomach.

She could find a star in my intestines,
a dwarf light could warble in my stomach
and she'd see it through my belly button.

She'd pull it out
wings and all
and tell me
that Khalil knew the answers.

Out of this two-ton purse she carried around,
she'd whip out a compilation of Khalil Gibran.

One time she told me how her father
used to pull her hair
and thighs.

She didn't say anything about it again.

When we tripped shrooms,
she took my hands and put them on her neck
and asked me to feel for the nebulas
underneath her skin.

When I read
some of the stuff you send me,
the emails,
texts
or poems,
I can't help but wonder how many words
I now know as a result of you
that I wouldn't know
if I hadn't been looking
around for bud
and someone I knew
that
knew you.

I'm sorry Lisa Nelle,
that things didn't work out with you and Alexis
when they did
with you
and
Sabrosa.

Sometimes I hate myself too.

I want to be inside every girl you ****** before me,
show you the birthmarks you never noticed
shaped like canoes and rocketships.

I will get her chest to rise, then fall,
steal the very source of her breath and curl my fingers
around it –
into dough, how you never could knead.

I have my hand on her throat
because you hated when she would talk.
We could work together, tie her hair into a knot.

I just want to be inside the girls who have intestines
like cotton candy and ******* like watermelon
explain why you should
have loved her as a woman sometimes.

You say you prefer my skin, and the way I whimper
but maybe you just did not
**** her hard enough.

you never read my poems.

did you even know I wrote poems?

you knew I wrote short stories.
you wrote with me.

but poetry?
my very soul?
the thing that makes days, weeks, months, years, bearable?

you never read any of it.
you didn't care.

holly jeanette (you loved my middle name) you need to write more!

I wrote tons.
you didn't mean poems.
you meant stories that benefitted you, not me.
you never cared.
I was so afraid to share that big part of myself.

but you never asked.
I dropped subtle hints.
ugh, need a new poetry journal
I prefer poems to stories.
and once, hey babe, wanna read this thing I wrote?

but my poetry never appealed to you.
my poetry didn't do anything for you.
mís poemas te dejaste friá.

you never cared about the thing that made me happiest.
you cared only about the thing that you thought made me happiest, you.

there's this pain in my chest and it's been there since the day you left an I think it's because I know I'll never be able to call you mine again.

my hands are empty and so is my heart because with every breath you take next to her it tears my world apart.

I've cried you a river, and it leads to the ocean that you said you'd cross to be with me.

you promised you'd never leave, that your heart was mine to keep,
but words are just words, you never meant them anyway

I wish I was a cloud
Floating gracefully by
I wish I was a rainbow
Painting the blue sky
I wish I was rain
Pouring down on earth
I wish I was fire
Warming up the hearth
I wish I was a bird
Soaring in freedoms flight
I wish I was a star
Illuminating the night
I wish I was patient
And endless like the sea
I wish I was
anything
Anybody
But me