You Better Be Lightning (Button Poetry)

by Andrea Gibson

You’re talking to someone who wore a lifejacket to the baptism because I knew—I knew what they were trying to do. _________________________________

Right before I died, I thought, In the afterlife, I’ll apply for a job at a mistake factory. They’ll be awed by my résumé. If anything, I’m overqualified.

Last night I was at her house holding her son who calls me Ankle because it’s a mix between aunt and uncle, and I was thinking how the straight folks in my life don’t always understand why so many of my exes are my closest friends but how my therapist says it’s the most beautiful part of the queer community—how we’ve all lost so much family when we find people we call family, we’ll do almost anything to not say goodbye.