Egypt is pleading for the rosetta stone to be returned
It was the way they spoke, screaming in storms
that created a space for me in times
I felt inarticulate. My tongue tied
by years of repeated ideas, “Miss”,
and being portrayed as bossy. I was
a mouth that held a thousand strangled tongues
my words each syllable a fight to take
up space to stand on equal ground to tell the joke
before becoming one. We move in ways
He hates, my hairy armpits desecrate seams
of made for men button downs – types of shirts
I buy resale on principle. I have to
pay for my own airtime. would you
have spoken over her if you weren’t a white man?
Anaïs peterson (they/them // name) is a mixed blessing, a fake astrology queer, and an organizer who likes to write in black pen. a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh where they received a double major in english writing and urban studies their work is now a mix of lyric essays and prose poems writing around the topic of freedom in its many forms and often returning to dwell on sunflowers. you can follow them on twitter @anais_pgh.