So Darn Gay

My name is Eugena

With an E

like eccentric

or e) All of the above

I am red

like Nina Simone’s pretty little pillow box

and orange

like blazing sunsets

of gold inside of Ponyboy’s retinas in September

and I wonder what it’s like

to wonder what it’s like

to be inside of an ember

and I wanna be real like J.Lo and the Velveteen Rabbit

I am a helpless garbage-art-loving romantic

who asked a yellow-rose-hating girl once

whether she’d like a yellow rose in the context of my dusty dashboard

and yellow street lamp light?

a dyed yellow dusty rose?

I said,

What about....

would you like a yellow origami rose

if I made one for you out of used McDonald's cheeseburger wrappers by cutting them off at the pass-

saving them from a landfilled life of degradation?

Would you find a rose beautiful if it were lonely (like me) and dried out by the sun,

bathing in dust particles

and was the very same colour as a crumpled McDonald's cheeseburger wrapper

that nobody wanted?”

I wanted

to dive into her moss green eyes

then get married like two wide-eyed brides

in spite of the patriarchy

She was my mirror

so that I could see my own breath

and know that I exist

I wrote her little disappearing love notes in that fog

with my finger

then saw my teeth pushed up against crushed shining silver

reflected back were my own two blue eyes

I saw a wolf

tracking its mate through the sky

using sidereal time

My life in a nutshell-

Queer pursuit and staying hydrated

I am deep

like the water I drink

where brown turns to blue in the ocean

reflecting light

I am an indigo child

taking a peek at my life through my third eye

realizing that everything is gonna be alright

I am Pink flesh like a flamboyance of flamingos

and what makes me a woman is not that I bleed

like a pomegranate dancing with the moon

I choose violet over intergenerational violence

those little purple and yellow flowers that bloom

through sidewalk cracks without any room

a spectrum of flowers bursting forth in the spring

asking us who we have become

I go spelunking within for fun

Got me wondering about my own cracks

Been busted along the way

Scars drenched in maple syrup

like hot cakes of inflammation

I was a dustpan full of chards

with gold glue in hand

ready to kintsugi

my own heart back together

make medication out my own tribulations

like K’naan

building bridges in a broken brain

cracked by father’s bipolar disorder

white cracker colonizer DNA descendent of settlers

from the paternal line and mitochondrial trauma

worn like a moth tattoo

and when my grey shadows come through

I greet them with faded brown cardboard welcome signs at the airport

cuz cardboard is impermanent like universes and all things

My skin is thick like a landlady’s

or a mole’s

yet heart is soft-

a rainbow in the mist

I am a ROYGBIV up in this

ready to paint the town red or blue or whatever colour I choose

I like to mash it up like potatoes, Z-Trip or the Baha'i

Power-clashing patterns of plaid

in purple, green, yellow and tie dye

I write poems in my moleskin

about melancholy,

the 2 week lifespan of a butterfly

and political leaders’ lies

As I walk into the house of mirrors

without gloves on and no fears

I let my anxiety turn to sorrow

Nectar of the nadir

ready to drink the life from this muscle and marrow

like a milkshake that

brings all the boys to the yard

wishing that my girl,

King of the lesbians,

and I,

Aphrodykey,

Goddess of love and beauty,

weren’t so darn gay