Juliet Takes a Breath

by Gabby Rivera

This was how we said good-bye. We ate Puerto Rican food and used outdoor voices to tell perfectly exaggerated stories while loving so hard it hurt.

Libraries had zero tolerance for bullshit. Their walls protected us and kept us safe from all the bastards that never read a book for fun.

So no, we aren’t damaged. We have suffered from the brutality of an inherently violent system that favors maleness over womanhood. We’ve been victimized, but that doesn’t make us all victims.

Before this summer, I’d never considered there was anything beyond he or she. Or that folks could experience a multitude of genders within their person, like what?! That sounded amazing. Beautiful. Wild like the universe.

You said reading would make me brilliant, but writing would make me infinite.”