Today's poem is by KB Brookins

& on my way out of the capitol, I see 2 trans boys kissing
       

They lean their limbs on the big white building.
In the midst of heavy hands with amber gavels

ripping our lives away, while boys in cowboy hats
& ripped jeans—the kind Bri Bagwell would deem

faux cowboy, while reporters ask me
what will you do now that you are illegal,

while meritless tears fall from the most beautiful girls
you'll ever see, they swap genes. They print themselves

on the side of our state's mazey hell trap like
the scene needed to see what Texas means.

They bloom themselves in a sea of sad enbies.
It would be perfect if it wasn't so sad. I would be something

if I didn't have to tell you this. Love me like a kiss
stolen from an ex at our biannual death

match. Miss me like the hand that cradles a blue
lover's back while fire burns through pink light.

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Copyright © 2024 KB Brookins All rights reserved
from The Southeast Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission