You were God’s messenger—ethereal creation, the first
lesbian I knew besides Shelly Guy, who had a butterfly tattooed on her wrist
at a time when girls didn’t have tattoos even
butterflies. It was blue. We were all going somewhere
back then. I wonder if you made it. Wasn’t it nice to be crazy
together? Diagnoses held like cards in our hands.
Slapped down for effect. I am… Fill in the blank. Nowadays they choose
their symptoms from the internet and text them to their doctors
share it on Instagram: I knew a girl who went from ADHD to
Bipolar to Borderline to Narcissist to Sociopath back to ADHD
in an afternoon. You never deviated. I liked that about you.
I like girls you said batting your long lashes. I wasn’t lesbian
but I needed to find the different people. Kansas was always boring.
No long-lashed lesbians, no glitter, no discordant voices, no blue butterflies.
Lee Varon is a social worker and writer. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in: Evanescent: A Journal of Literary Medicine, Soulful Verses, Ibbetson Street # 54, and Constellations: A Journal of Poetry and Fiction. She is a co-editor of Spare Change News Poems: An Anthology by Homeless People and Those Touched by Homelessness and author of the children’s book: My Brother is Not a Monster: A Story of Addiction and Recovery published in 2021.
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