A. Shaikh

honey we 2019 (i remain alive)

after Tommy Pico

i tweet and cry @ everything. like AOC & Spike Lee
& my own motherfucking tonsil. even breathing feels

political. but inside my breast bone my voice booms like a
bass. hums an entire new type of jazz. whispers, you a real

American. breathe it in and believe it, honey! outside, our
orange president tries to steal my visa back & mom doesn’t

understand how my girl crush is daffodil, the sun spooning itself
onto tongue. one day i will teach brown girls to stop writing

elegies to themselves. instead, they will learn to breathe
the moon inwards, which is to say i will become a lighthouse.

a magician who vanishes her shame. this is the year i lick
hot cheeto dust pornographically & masturbate proudly

to white men on t.v. i stop brushing until my gums bleed.
start fitting into my bisexual jeans. this year i stay good-looking.

20 y/o queer confessional

this ramadan i girl crush so hard
i dream of blackberry jam. last year
my hunger ate its way out of my own
body and onto her lip gloss. undisturbed,
the summer heat still hurls cherry seeds
at young lovers. in an alternate universe,
we slow dance to a song my mother recognizes.
maybe here i am proud. every year since fifteen
i have unfurled women and watched
the odor deepen until my queerness is
touching bone. i have it on good authority
it smells like a dozen red velvet cupcakes.
& yet in the judgment hour, i imagine god
over speakerphone, telling everyone in my
high school that i am a vehicle of i​mmense transgression.​
he sounds like my father’s teeth. the chain link of my
childhood. this june i google how to refute
my bisexuality. searching ​how to shake free
of ur gay desire and still remain alive? celibacy
is a word the Quran tries to inspire faith
with. what else? i remember the years
i only liked men every time someone brings up
Twilight. which is to say, all i learn from my youth
is a mirage of shame. a scented candle of blue regret.