This post is courtesy of a friend of the magazine. We are formally opening for submissions on June 30.
I try to look at you.
It’s a difficult endeavor.
Every time I meet someone’s eyes,
something begins to itch
at the back of my skull.
It tugs on my brain,
pulls it down my spine in a way
that crawls.
But I need you to understand me.
To look at me.
To scrape the skin off the muscle,
the muscle off the bone,
the bone off the marrow.
Look at my DNA.
See what makes me dream,
sweat,
stick.
I want to break my ribs open.
Let you see how my heart beats,
how it bears my weight.
Push your hands against my lungs.
Flush the air out of them,
learn what makes me
breathe it back in.
What am I without your perception?
How can I have an identity
without you?
Peel back my skull,
sink your nails into my brains.
Feel along its grooves.
Dig around my cortex.
Leave your fingerprints along the insides of my mind.
You turn your gaze away.
We no longer exist.
