ODE TO MY BEDROOM

Nevo Zisin

Rest my weary head in your hands hold me like mother hold me like lover the greatest love story I’ve ever known fill my cup with the nectar of your silence sweep your dust off my chest make me warm keep me cozy spread the leaves of your plants through my ribcage storytell me the seasons through my dreams bare with me

I’m busy tell me to be less busy take vacuum to your corners your windowsill a piano I haven’t played in a while strip the bed of my yearning fill the laundry basket of my avoidance

I will clean you when I’m ready

You will clear me when you can

We will dance like this through apocalypse

Through recycling bins of calendars across suburbs, continents

Beyond time or linearity

We will meet near the end

I will love you through incarnations

You will love me through mine

PRIDE POEM Nia Jacobsen

I find my pride in little things. In my earring collection, And my pancake-making skills.

The way my nails look when I’ve resisted biting them. The rainbow flags I see stuck to windows or billowing from a flagpole.

These make me feel bolder. They make me feel brave.

I’m proud of some medium-sized things too.

My friendships.

My capacity to love.

My thunderous voice, But not my laugh, Once mocked by a boy in my class for being too loud. It’s been years, but I am still getting over that.

I do not pick at the scab over my ribs, Where shame once festered.

Shame I picked out with tweezers, Strand by strand.

But I do run my fingertips lightly over the wound and remember.

I remember calling things ‘gay’ in high school,

As if it was synonymous with the word ‘bad’.

I remember being caught up in the language of my classmates before I knew better.

Before I knew who I was.

I remember my mother, after my sister came out to us,

Saying she’ll meet a nice man and settle down, before she too knew better,

And years later, when I came out to her, telling me she loves me just as I am.

And remembering makes me think all our wrongs are just ignorance.

And one day, when we know better, we will look back with regret.

But we can look at the distance we’ve travelled, from that place of shame to where we are now,

And be proud.

Colours in me, on me, colours everywhere.

They’re in how I dress, how I present myself to the world. Or the void of my room.

In the bobbled jumper my mum crocheted for me / in the merperson curls flowing onto my neck, the leftover dye still smudging my fingers even now /in the stripey funky socks slouching down my shins.

My colours sometimes do not come together like people think they should, but my colours do not exist for them.

They’re for me.

See me bounce wonder off the windows, drench the floor in my fun.

I’m tutoring myself in how to live colourfully / boldly / glittery-ly To choose my preferences over the opinions of others.

Colours in me, on me. I will joyfully continue dressing my world in colours.