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.