You Better Be Lightning (Button Poetry)

by Andrea Gibson

What if we don’t have to be healed to be whole? There are holes in every inch of the fabric that makes me who I am,

you are going to be anything in the world tonight, you better be lightning. You better find something in you honest enough to strike them.

My pronouns are gonna change. My body is gonna change not because of my DNA but because a tick is gonna bite me and that little monster is gonna mess with my life more than a parade of homophobes could ever dream of, but love will still throw me over her shoulder and carry me up every story I’ve ever told myself so I can see what’s true, and what’s true is I can’t always tell the difference between my gifts and my tragedies.

We are visiting from so far away we thought it was the furthest one could go until we saw the distance between two lovers who had been sharing the same bed for four decades.