Tag: LGBTQ

Sneaking Out to Play House with Ana

.Reading time 4 minutes.

By: JC Andrews

the day gathers up     in a blonde     geometry     and we     drive out
    to turn     phantom on DeSalvo’s dock     because we can     because
DeSalvo went dead     and left his pond unattended     so we come     here
    and watch     the moonback     like maybe     it might turn around
and make us     real to somebody     sometimes I wish     I could throw
    her up     in the air     and watch her     spin forever     she’s like
yawning     during the pledge     and missing     indivisible     or picking
    scabs during     catechism     you see     I am stupid as the weather
when she says     Please     like a field waving itself     into the blade     when
    she rubs     her thumb     in circles     in the middle of my palm     I am
honest to god     adjacent to me or     ajar     there is no halo     like leaving
    yourself     ajar     you become a room     so danced     it thumps violet
or you become ready     for another room to enter     you back     she is
    a room too     asking me     if this is alright     like she can’t see
my face     already decided     under this light     we call our space juice
    because we     drink it     we pray for no spoon     in the persimmon
we sit down scared     like substitute teachers     we learn     how to love
    with one hand     and we scrape our backs     on this wood like     we’re
rubbing off velvet     or making     the muscles in our traps     to fight
    and we know     this house     is a gift     even if     invisibled

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Ode to the White Girl at the Gym

.Reading time 1 minute.

By Shavahn Dorris-Jefferson

White girl with the slender legs, I’ve been measuring myself
by those yardsticks, trying to fit into the cocoon of your skinny
jeans and make this butt a butterfly. White girl with the limpy locks—

angel hair—I’m running behind you on the track, watching your ponytail,
a pendulum, swing back and forth and back again. I bet even the hair
in between your thighs is smooth as thread, your knuckle frizz

a fine, fine filament. You fair thing! The way you stop to stretch,
raising your arms without thinking, bending back without looking
to see who’s behind you. O how I want you and hate you.

Or want to hate you. Or hate to want you. Butter-skinned
beauty, I could swallow you whole and alive.

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Sonnet (I Have Two Moms)

.Reading time 1 minute.

By Luciana Arbus-Scandiffio

In the seventh grade we debated gay marriage. I was con.
I stayed home. Kept my hair in a braid and kept my braid
to myself. Tucked my name like a secret up my sleeve.
Wore hideous loafers. Ate full-sized boxes of Twizzlers.
Became rigid, a painting. Still Life with Social Studies.
My skullcap, full of doves. My face, a hot button.
Press it! Pierce my timid ears. In the bathroom eating
a turkey sandwich and Jenny dragging my zipper down
to see what was there. Con: my whole life riding
on a hyphen. Con: my hands blue with luck. An eyelash
on my finger. Two of anything can build a bridge.
The love makes me lonely. The love makes my family.
A slogan of roses. A crown of sugar ants
eating through the gymnasium floor.

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She Asks Me, Who is Roger?

.Reading time 2 minutes.

By Chrys Tobey

Featured Art: Time Lapse Photography of People Walking on Pedestrian Lane by Mike Chai

I could tell her about my yoga teacher, Roger, who wears the cutest shorts,
which I overheard him say were tailored, or when I was five, there was

the dad, I think his name was Roger, of my neighbor I’d play house with until
my mom caught us humping. But really, I could give her a long list of Rogers—

Roger who never reciprocated my love when I was fifteen. Roger who, on our second
date, burped all of “SexyBack.” Roger who stole my money so he could buy me underwear.

There was Roger with the engagement ring that he threw at my head. There was
Roger with his fondness for spanking. Roger with his missing tooth. Roger with his

fake front tooth. One Roger told me, You’re not really a feminist. Another Roger asked,
Are you really a feminist? And Roger from New York who said, You don’t seem bitter

enough to be a feminist. I could tell her about all the pretty Rogers. The first
Roger I married. Or the second Roger. I could tell her about the Rogers I don’t want

to remember—the ones that taught me I should only live on a second floor.
When she asks me, Who is Roger?—because in a text I wrote, Roger; because she is new

to the U.S.—I smile and tell her about truckers and lingo and don’t tell her how when
I see the small scar on her nose, all the Rogers peel away like dead skin.

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I’m Only Dancing

.Reading time 1 minute.

By Chris Ketchum

At ten, I meet myself in the mirror of my sister’s vanity, squeezed into the tiny
corset of her pale blue dress, Cinderella’s image printed on the breast like a
brooch. My little-boy pecs puff out like cleavage. The tulle skirt brushes against
my thighs, rising above the knee, billowing around my Fruit of the Looms as I
prance down the staircase to the dining room where my mother lights a candle
before dinner. She laughs to see me skip across the hardwood floor, turning and
twirling on the ball of my socked foot—and when she does, I know I want to
keep her laughing. I’m not sure why, but I speak in a higher voice, with a lisp,
and she laughs harder, and as I’m preening, brushing my cheeks with the back
of my hand, leaping into the air like the hippos in Fantasia, I notice the tears—
how they run down the corner of her nose, wetting her upper lip. I don’t know
why she’s crying—maybe I’m really that funny. So I keep dancing.

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The Reflex

.Reading time 3 minutes.

By Mitchell Jacobs

Featured Art: Boats and setting sun by Ohara Koson

The scent of shampoo reminds me of carrots.
There’s an explanation, I swear, surfacing
from a developing-Polaroid brown. It’s April.
At recess an upside-down pizza slab is gooing
into the cracked blacktop, and a grainy beat
blasts from some girl’s hot-orange earbuds.
On the grass all the boys are playing wallball
with one of those rubber balls like a big pink eraser,
and when I’m up I don’t chuck it far enough
so Austin says, “Come on, Mitchell, you can’t
even throw like the girls,” which is heartbreaking
for a bunch of reasons. Back home, Duran Duran’s
“The Reflex” spins in the Discman on my bathtub rim.
You’ve gone too far this time, and I’m dancing
on the Valentine. My tunes are twenty years out of date
but I know them by heart. I’ve been lying there half an hour,
tub empty, stoking a burn in my gut. Next day in L.A.
(that’s Language Arts), it’s Fat Shawn’s turn at vocab charades
but he just stands there thinking until somebody shouts
“Rotund!” and that’s not his word but it is the end
of the game. That’s how cruelty works around here.
I’m no Shawn but I am Tree Kid and no one
tells me why. The reflex is a lonely child . . .
Jake calls me a poser for wearing skate shoes,
which is how I learn I wear skate shoes, and then
I chase him and kick him with those shoes. Mostly
I’m a head-down kind of kid. I don’t peek at the pull-down map
during the geography quiz. I don’t snicker when
the health teacher says gluteus maximus, but I am
the one who laughs when she can’t spell epididymis.
Another night and it’s the tub again, lights off, interpreting
the song with nonsense lyrics I’m sure have something
to do with all this clench and spasm. The reflex is a door
to finding treasure in the dark. I un-twist-tie
the plastic produce bag and glob out more Pantene, hating
the boys who run around cocksure with their narrow
calves and their throwing arms with actual
visible muscles and those stupid impossible taut butts
and I’ll show them with this soaped-up carrot
what I can take, how it stings, how I tighten my fist
as I hear them spit out my name.

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