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Yaffa AS (They/She)
I wonder if she
likes me
does she know?
I'm tangled in her curls
the humidity frizz
locking me in
Mama says to
ask her out.
she doesn't get it
what if she does?
am I ready?
two months from
my naming ceremony
they fill
my thoughts
during olive harvest
beach days
as I sketch Yaffa’s
walls again and again
as if there's some
hidden wisdom there
she smiled at me
one morning
my breath catches and
I can't breathe
does anyone else
ever feel this way?
Baba says yes
most people do on the
romantic spectrum
I tell him he must
be wrong
how could anyone
function if so?
he laughs, then Mama and Ren
and I groan
cramps filling my
heart
I know everything
about her,
best friends from
before the beginning.
Ren says all our souls
recognize each other
from lives we may never
remember, lived fully.
I wonder if we've lived
this before
I ask one day,
under the shade of
the fig trees overlooking
the world,
they smile and take
my hand,
it's everything then
until their lips are
on mine and
I wonder if maybe
breathing from lungs
is temporary
until lips are filled
with oxygen
if I never breathe again
I'll live forever
then her hands glide
on mine and I'm a
Supernova
cheesily combusting
into a black hole??
then, more
then, they’re there
for dinner
like she normally
is and I can't stop
smiling
ear to ear
wondering, is my entire
being a smile?
I draw her sometimes
in the fields,
in classes we share,
from my mind
over years and lifetimes
our first dance
the second the
third, the everyday
before, during, and after
we hold hands
smile, cry, as if stuck
in every emotion
holding onto the
one beyond them
love
there are kisses
hands held with other
smiles, my skin on
theirs, nourishing one
another
I draw a sea
of love, bodies
in ecstacy connecting
beyond time and space
I am there
she is there
talking about
bits and pieces of
life that make
us whole
home becomes
shared space between
us and others
I draw them all
they farm, their fruit
filling our bellies
they fill the gaps
between us
Our eggs coalesce
materializing in a child
that is neither of ours
yet part of everything
we are
she claims
Avé, they say
Adam and Eve were
one first,
a cycle of loss
and growth
complete
we explore wheat fields and
mentorship structures,
we find their soul
belongs in the sea
I follow them in,
the water too cold
for my lungs
I draw them too,
a speck so physically small
in a passionate sea,
yet larger than passions and
seas combined
Years pass,
our lives like
the tides
coming in and out
but never really gone
I'm with my partner,
Avé is in the distance
the sun shining
down on them
as if they're to
leave us any minute,
I smile
wherever they go,
they are magic
She's by my side
massages my fingers
strained and paint-stained,
calluses lining them
mapping everyday
of our lives