May we teach our young how to worship
at the altar of storms, Mama patron saint of strange.
May we decry
the false love of men, the love of false gods.
May we lope easy and free
down the streets of the love of our youth,
fearless and whole,
your long ringed fingers tapping my hip at twilight.
Do you remember
our new tenderness
in the friend’s apartment we were watching for the weekend?
We both smelled like cigarettes and shea butter for two days,
the Michigan snow flying up against the big windows,
eighteen years old and feeling like we were only just now
being born,
into storms and into love.
My wicked girl, it’s your wedding day, and this is not appropriate. But in the interest of transparency, I will tell you here, and just never send the letter:
All of my winters still belong to you.
I’m writing this in the middle of the night, while in the next room my lover sleeps
undisturbed by history.
When the phone rings, sometimes I think it will be your voice that greets me. It’s true
That this is selfish, and I know better than most that you are your own. At the very least, then:
I hope that this beloved knows how to keep you warm in the heart of winter.
I hope he knows
that he cries out his pleasure to God herself amen.
I hope he feels the perfect weight of you in his hands and suddenly feels the urge to pray, or cry.
I hope he holds your lightning and all the breath gets struck
right out of him. You are
magnificent- god! miraculous, wild you,
your plumes and your teeth,
your tears and your tales-
Fearsome; whole.
I swear to you I won’t forget
What either of us are.
I will hold the memory of the two girls in Michigan,
the snow, the holy truth of you
on my tongue, the way we never shut our eyes.
About the Creator
Sophie Colette
She/her. Queer witchy tanguera writing about the loves of my life, old and new. Obsessed with functional analytic psychotherapy & art in service to revolution. Occasionally writing under the name Joanna Byrne.
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