I Keep My Exoskeletons to Myself

by Marisa Crane

In middle school, my only queer friend taught me to use the word family when identifying a queer stranger in public. As I got older and gayer, I heard a lot of talk about chosen family, but I didn’t understand why something so beautiful had to be compared to family. Why couldn’t it just be its own good thing?

We is the longest word I know.

The first stage of grief, I realize, isn’t denial—it’s clinging.

“I once read that some trees are connected by a complex fungi network. Trees keep the chopped-down stumps of their loved ones alive by feeding them sugar solutions through their roots,”

Had she been paying attention, she would have known it hadn’t happened overnight, that it took a million tiny stabs to bleed democracy dry.

What I’m trying to say is—I’ve never been afraid of anything more than I’ve been afraid of my own happiness. But I want it, oh I want it. Something tells me it isn’t happiness without fear. This small fact keeps me breathing and sleeping.

Graffiti is a beautiful way to say fuck you.