LHS Junior's Poem Earns NY Times Honor
LHS Junior's Poem Earns NY Times Honor
Mel's entry:
Queer Kid Imagines An Alternate Reality/Politics Disguised as a Love Poem
Queer: A synonym for an absence of love
Not a new definition of love,
But its antithesis
In this world, I cannot afford indifference
I was unable to find it at Goodwill this summer
I limp through life as a statement, a red flag declaring war
In another world,
We sit on the floor of our bathroom, 25, after a long day of work
Your hair is up
The world is quiet
And softly pirouetting
I know how to make your coffee;
4 sugars, a splash of creamer
It overflows the cup and pours onto the yellowed, aging tiles
And the world is a newborn baby with jaundice
Orange, crying, glowing
Effereservent is the word carved into our skin
In this world, I don’t listen to the sirens go by
Instead, I lean my ear toward the babbling creek of your throat and tune everything else out
I trace hearts on your shoulder, smooth down a hair
Jesus died years ago, but I swear for a moment
I can see him painting us on an easel in the corner
Clementine shelters his canvas
Here, indifference was baked into my childhood brownies
I was born clutching it tight like an IV
When I lost my first tooth, I tasted it in my mouth instead of blood
Here, love and fear aren’t conjoined twins,
Split in half and told they are not the same soul
In this world, I have cried,
But never wailed
Back in reality,
I’m a cozy home for uncomfortable questions
They fester, an ineffable wound
Back in reality,
I cross my fingers every four years,
Tight, like ribbons
Meanwhile,
Love becomes silent, it shrivels
And action is a highway,
A headache
Of noise