After Natalie Diaz
She was calling for me in the night-light-free bedroom
the one she spends most of her time in.
When they came to her door—
scratching, hissing, looking to break skin—
oozing under the crack where the light comes in
leaving her submerged in darkness. My eyes
dilating trying to find her
Then, she wants to marry.
Then, she is with our parents
she is drowning. She has water in her bones.
She is in the fountain. She is swallowing its coins.
So I shoved my hands against her
Forcefully breaking her open. Showing
the queerness sitting in between her ribs
the flecks of it in her bloodstream.
She said, Don’t leave me. And they did.
She said, Please hold me. And I did.
Arms wrapping around exposed bones
her fingers feeling my own
the same electricity beneath them.
Oh, she mumbles. The warmth spreads.
Fire starting to burn the peeling wallpaper.
Ash melting into freckles across our noses
lungs spasming in a new way.
I feel the smoke the same as she does
I feel love the same as she does
Her painted nails wedged into my skin
The tingling shared between us
What are you going to do now?
Go home, she replied
slipping into me through my open mouth
intertwining herself in my spine.
Home. She said, Home.
Izze Goldberg is an undergraduate poet studying Creative Writing at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. She lives in North Carolina and writes poetry to capture and represent the significance of smaller moments in life, especially those she has personally experienced. Izze believes writing is the best way to encapsulate a feeling and aims to accomplish that with each poem she writes.
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