Dead Dove: Do Not Eat

Tuko Goes

I am the bird, dead in a bag. My Body is fragile and broken, I turn away from it too. Vile and flawed, your hand on my Shoulder, I press my palm to your back. What is the nature of Inheritance?

To tear off my flesh and find beetles beneath it, Mushrooms grow out of my capillaries. I look in the mirror but you stare back, What shoes am I stepping into?

I don’t remember who left me here, Did you do this to me? Did I do this to myself? Spores rip from my chest, A grotesque cacophony, hideous and Savory. Decay is but an extant form of life.

Tuko Goes is a Senior at Catalina Foothills High School in Tucson, Arizona. His work mostly focuses on exploration of queer immigrant identities, and interpersonal connections. He hopes to pursue creative writing going into University.

AD ASTRA

Tuko Goes

Hands running through hair, pressing fingers to your chest. We lay on the grass, gazing at the stars. Your voice is saccharine, waxing and waning the myth of Orion. Your body is warm, and I feel the thrum of your pulse beneath mine. I’ve Always been fascinated by bodies. Blood pumping through your arteries, a heady rush buzzing through your head. Breath in the momentary relief of living. Both our hearts flutter. Despite the darkness I imagine the capillaries on your cheeks expanding, bringing color to your skin.

Your pastel is misshapen at best and a clay project gone wrong at worst. They’re clumsily pinched together, despite your careful ministrations. Shaky hands betray where you rolled the dough unevenly. You prod at one, and the tip of your fingernail snags and punctures the dough, bits of meat and cheese stick out. By comparison, mine are fairly uniform and put together.

“Looks Good,” “It’s not perfect.” “Everything you make is good enough.”

What secrets are wrapped up under your muscles, in the hollow of your ribs? You tell me Orion was a hunter. One who wanted to make game out of every beast. This hubris angered the gods, who’d come to send a creature he couldn’t conquer. Scorpius. Of course, our hunter is slain, but he defeats the monster. You say it was then, for their hardship, for their hatred. And maybe for the sweet sadness found in inevitability, the gods decided to honor them both in the stars. Destined to chase after each other through the night eternally. Orion in the winter, Scorpius in the summer. Never together but always seeking one another.

I felt that was something I could understand.

I edge closer to you than I should have dared. You lay your head against my chest. There are no secrets under your bones, muscles, as foreign as they are, are things I already know. Your tight breathing cascades into a laugh. And your joy tastes like praise that sings in my bones. No secrets to unburden, no passages to reveal. There is no beginning or end between the two of us.