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.