Cotton Xenomorph is a literary journal produced with the mission to showcase written and visual art while reducing language of oppression in our community. We are dedicated to uplifting new and established voices while engaging in thoughtful conversation around social justice.

Miss T

BY R. THURSDAY

After Gabrielle Calvocoressi

Introduce yourself again, whatever

name wraps itself safely around your runner

legs and anchors you to this earth, tell me.

It won’t weigh any more in my mouth

than your curls, the glasses you don’t wear.

Miss you and all you were going to

be; tell me about the girl on the volleyball team, 

the one who leaves your texts on read, I will 

tell you ‘bitches ain’t shit,’ because you’re not mine

anymore, but take it back immediately. Miss you

ranting about the drama, about the drama

teachers trying to be cool, but getting your name

wrong. Miss you. Your cleats collecting water

on the stone bleachers, the rain’s futile attempt

at erasing you, like fathers. Want to hear you laugh

at us, the math teacher and I, gelatinous cube

our way up, leave you dinosaurs, how fast

you slip away. Unspooled mixtape, compact

disc scratched so deep none of our players

ever translate the same way again. Miss

the alignment, or light, miss your light, Courier

font poems left under not-bullet-proof-enough doors.

Miss believing in a world with bullet-proof-enough

words. Show up after 4, knowing I will still be there.

Tell me about how you want to run: the track, for office, 

away, but you’re not sure, there’s so much that holds you

back. Tell me how to hold you back so I don’t miss

you. Miss you. Give me the privilege of telling you

I’m busy, could you come back later. Please come back

later. Your eyebrows escaping into orbit, reprimanding

me for being weird, not cool weird, you’d say, just weird

weird, and besides, she always gets back to you

eventually. Miss resist quoting every pop song

about only loving someone when no one else can see.

Missed the chance to tell you to be loved in the open,

so open, no need to share yourself with the sky. You ask

about a meme, think I can explain it any better. We go

on an internet adventure to understand. It’s stupid. We love

it anyway. Miss you greeting me with it for months after,

the newest brood of unbrooding queers confused,

but indulgent. You’re olds now. Miss you getting to get old.

I’ve tacked your thank you cards to the board. You groan

in adolescent angst, you’re so much better than that now.

Make me a new one. Make you anew. Miss hoping

you would just make it through.


R. Thursday (they/them) is a writer, historian, educator, and all-around nerd. When not subverting Middle School Social Studies curricula, they can be found reading, cooking spicy dishes, playing video games, or writing about vampires, super heroes, mental health, queerness, and on a good day, all of the above. They placed second in the 2021 Rhysling Awards for Short Poem, and their work has been published by several lovely journals. They live in South King County, Washington with the world's most copacetic cat.

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