i think it’s that my mother started reading the Song of Achilles, and told me she didn’t realise it was about… you know… that they were gay, and then didn’t finish it. i think it’s that my mother still introduces me as her daughter. i think it’s that my mother has never called me by my real name, only a neutral nickname she can derive from it. people mishear her, and think im called Jane. i think I would’ve been a good Jane. a violent one. i think it’s that my mother has a “gay bestie” and i think it’s that she screamed at me in the car when my teacher told her she’d seen me walking around school holding hands with a girl. i think it’s how she used to drive us around in the car, and tell us she didn’t care what we were, gay, straight, or purple, as long as we were happy. i think it’s about returning to the well and finding it still full of all the wishes I’d made as a child, and realising they were only ever copper.
need to be pressed into the skin of the person I love as we fall asleep together and I think they should be a guy who plays rugby or maybe a guy who used to box but I think they should be a baker as well and I think they should be loud and flamboyant but I also think they should be sturdy and quiet and comfortable in their own skin about it but also I think I want to be in love with a woman who paints and she should be a million things you can’t pin down but really I think none of it matters and I’ll love anyone who loves me because I’m so desperate to be seen and known and I’ve never felt more like a real person than when my face is being held
And fuck, if I was born right it would be simpler for people to love me.