warped girlhood

by Erin McKay

CW: internalized homophobia

This is a poem about the way we passed the summer:

languid in your room with the window open, 

me breathing in the air like it was our final july.


i taught you Bonnie Raitt on the guitar and 

never told you what the song was called;

i figured you’d learn it soon enough. 


This is a poem about that one party, the one where we came in together, 

but i spent the night watching you from across the kitchen.

when i never saw you look back, i cried to the only other gay person i knew

and as comfort he told me, you feel unlovable


This is a poem about holding that unworthiness right in the hollow of your throat 

because what’s a lesbian but a girl with more space inside her,

filling it and filling it with backs turned and eyes averted;


So, we’ll sit on your bed and i’ll teach you guitar;

and there’ll be nothing else but the breeze through the curtains, 

giving me goosebumps all down my arms.

Erin is a sixteen-year-old from Connecticut. She enjoys making playlists, keeping notebooks, and long skirts.