tender – honey gaze

Sanctuary

Agatha scrapes open the rusting backyard gate, and a chorus of yips erupts from the inside of the bungalow. The troops emerge from the homemade dog flap in the back door; thirteen chihuahuas, dachshunds, and small mutts veer through the maze of vinca tendrils and tiger lilies to reach her as she walks up the thin path.

“Goddamn slimy devil spawn that girl is!” Agatha’s wrathful smoker’s voice rasps through the open kitchen window. “The audacity to try something this shifty, I just can’t fathom it.”

Point of Impact

Before I knew you’d died, I was driving/backwoods dirt roads, just/outside the small town we used to share

Communion

There is a picture of me at four years old helping my grandmother to plant summer/squash in her backyard garden; the two of us kneeling in freshly tilled dirt, my small/hands full of seeds that she would take one-by-one, cupping a small mound of earth/to cover each of them.

Chrysalis

A clump of five boys Devan’s age sat in the back row closest the emergency exit. Devan gave a little nod and a wave to one of them, a gangly boy with blonde locks that were much longer than the other boys’ hair. Even from the length of the bus, Devan could see an undiscovered galaxy of copper freckles pepper his cheekbones.

Scavenger

My dog sees it first,//her sleek silhouette/stiff & still &/bristled at the scent.

Home-Grown Serotonin

This year I did something I never thought I’d do: I went off my medication for my depression and anxiety…

Mycelium

I am not a tree, ascendingto reach the heavens. Although I’m not quite grounded, I have been under-ground & longed for cooling waterin the dark–a thirst that made me reach toes throughmidnight soil, hopingto grasp another like me,tenderly.This vigilant earth obscures us when weinterlock ourselves & sprawl. Now & againour fruiting bodiesemerge: strange, dazzling, ever-expanding.

BULB:

a found object sculpture on liminality and queer identity The elements present in this piece are: a house-shaped shadow box, soil, sea glass, dried flora, clothes hangers, space-patterned silk pillowcase, and yarn. I wanted the finished project to resemble a plant bulb emerging, with dual profiles coming out of it. I have hidden myself, andContinue reading “BULB:”

Pride & Joy

I’m having a hard time feeling the same level of pride and euphoria I usually feel during the beloved month of June. This is my first Pride month as a married queer person and the feeling really is bittersweet. I think about my younger self, before I was out of the closet, never dreaming thatContinue reading “Pride & Joy”

Ancestry

**alternative version published in issue 3 of Stone Fruit Literary Magazine** I walk a thin and unkept road of rocks,of dirt & roots, of things forgotten—lost& found. Those afternoons spent unconcernedbeneath a patchwork quilt of leaves & sky& warm late light. My chants would float like smoke:she loves me not, she loves me. Now IContinue reading “Ancestry”