On Queerness
by Sydney Soganich
I have fallen in love with a pair of blue mittens,
needle to yarn, with the way I learned love
at the feet of that worn brown armchair,
stitch by weathered stitch - love
was the first secret I ever learned to keep.
I have fallen in love with grief, with a child’s
world split in two. I have fallen in love with
my mother’s arms around me on a cherry-red couch,
learning at nine years old that to fall in love
with pain was to be something beautiful.
I have fallen in love over a dinner table, dropping
news like nothing while holding my breath, while
staring into wide eyes, forks frozen over plates.
I have fallen in love with my brother, his joyous
finally! and demand we pass the potatoes.
I have fallen in love with a girl on a stage,
hands shaking, the final act, professing
that her love was holy. I have fallen in love,
my scabbed knees on a coarse closet floor,
with the way that I have always prayed to women.
I have fallen in love and held
my own broken heart in my hands, clinging
tight to the shattered pieces like a promise, like proof.
we were here, we loved, we hurt.
this came from something beautiful.