they/them: a poetry anthology

labels hang on threads around my neck

Older, but ehh, I'm fond of it. TW for q word if you're not OK with that.

i like to line up the bathing boxes
in their rows of
neon and technicolour
next to the muted bay.
i like to row up moving boxes
piled high and labelled carefully.
"queer", "pansexual", "non-binary"
are some with which to start;
with time you might get to
the harder ones, at the bottom of the pile,
like
"i try so hard not to change"
and
"i love too deeply and easily";
maybe there's a box for
"i put my faith in the wrong people"
or "i pull my heart from my chest and
place it in the hands of those who drop it
to the ground, where it
shatters and casts its
sticky shards all over the tiles";
i have a label for everything