Kai Cheng Thom

someone told you when you were very young that you were a good

child because you were so quiet. and so you learned that silence

was something to admire, to look up at and aspire

to, like the moon – distant and unfathomable. you perfected silence. carved

it into yourself till it was miles deep. you dropped your words into this

chasm and watched them disappear. you could sit for hours, folding

your thoughts under your tongue, into themselves, over and over.

condemned her to live alone on the moon, forever circling

between the heaven she dreamed

of and the home she left behind.

and this is why the moon always seems so lonely, why

the touch of moonlight always feels like tears

a man told me once,

i’d like to wear heels in public,

but i’d also like to live

sometimes it’s important to be alive than to live

amber says, lying is the work

of those who have been taught that their truths have no value.

reading that one line

makes me want to slide myself between the book’s covers,

cry myself to sleep.

i’ve always needed books,

the way some of my punk queer friends need cigarettes,

or weed, or clear packets of molly the size of a thumbnail.