Emily comes to school with an armful of flowers
poetry by Arianna Monet
Emily comes to school with an armful of flowers
Hands me two irises and a bubbling spill of white blossoms I have no name for yet
Says I bought flowers for our saddest friends this week
Jokes that it’s like an award show
And I think what a gift it is to be loved in a way that honors your sadness
Commemorates you and all your fractures and missing pieces for making it this far
Says you deserve something bright blue and green and beautiful
Just for breathing through all of this rainwater.
Lip puts cookies down on the table and this is the first food I’ve remembered to eat today.
I pick one up and it is so good that I stop walking just to eat it,
stand still until I’ve finished the entire thing.
They call me beautiful when I’m getting off the train and I believe them.
They send me the recipe the next afternoon.
Myles sends me an all caps HAPPY BIRTHDAY during the worst part of my weekend
And something orange flickers in my chest like
Glitter made from a sunbeam filtered through a marigold.
Sophie draws me a picture and folds it into an envelope made of another picture
Shaped like a sunflower. I pin both to my bedroom wall.
Riley gives me a green dress and a box of band-aids
Says Can I fill up your water bottle before you go home?
And I think what a gift it is to hold the kind of love that wants to fill me with abundance
And to help me heal
To wrap me in something soft before it sends me out into the world.
Dixon asks me if I want Greek food or burritos.
Michael brings us brownies.
JJ hands me a strawberry cupcake topped with a berry and a candle and a silver star
Someone sings happy birthday
And my hometown best friend double checks my address
Just to make sure the envelope makes it from New York City
To the palms of my hands.
Dee comes over for dinner
Sits at my kitchen table and taste tests the glowing pool of sauce as I am blending it into being.
We are heavy-handed with the cumin and the olive oil and the red pepper flakes
Which is to say that we are brown.
Which is to say that we love each other.
Which is to say that we do our grocery shopping together
Because we will always remember how to feed each other
Even when we are struggling to care for ourselves
But I have stayed alive long enough to make so many mistakes,
And that’s not nothing.
A lip balm forgotten at a boyfriend’s apartment
A bottle of lemon juice spilled across the table
A mason jar shattered into glass confetti,
a splash of glitter and rainbows skittering across the hardwood floor
I have stayed alive long enough to create so many beautifully glimmering messes
And isn’t that what queer love is –
To D.I.Y. glitter out of the wreckage when things fall apart?
Arianna Monet
Arianna Monet (she/her) is a queer Black femme and marigold enthusiast living in Boston, Massachusetts (on stolen Wampanoag land). She believes strongly in pigtail buns, strawberry milkshakes, and aquarium half-light. When she is not hiding in a library to work on her next degree, catch her cooing loudly at the nearest puppy, wearing her mother’s wedding ring, and ordering dessert before dinner at every restaurant.