texas, december

by isaura ren

CW: homophobic slur and imagined / implied physical violence

Maybe it’s in the weather. You

sneer snowflake! instead of dyke!


and it feels like a kindness: plausible

deniability. These days, the sky itself

is falling. Bright white curtain. Clouds


of pedestrian breath. Only when it strikes

me does your saliva melt. Tender bullet.


Flurries succumb, gentle as anything,

to steaming palms. I reject the notion

I am so impermanent. God, I am not


yet solid. Let me drift. Leave me

seasons. Let my end not come


by the hot hands of a stranger.

Isaura Ren likes the cold. They are the founding editor of perhappened, a digital mag and press, and a prose reader for Homology Lit. Their poems have appeared online and in print internationally. Ironically, they are a fire sign. Twitter: @isaurarenwrites; isaurarenwrites.weebly.com.