1 25 118 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Contributing Authors Description An account of the resource This is a collection of all authors who have contributed to the Anthology. To browse authors by identities, <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/tag-index" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">visit the tag index</a> or <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/search" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">try our advanced search</a>. Author Contains a poem written in plain text. Author Biography Biographical information about a person. Arianne True (Choctaw, Chickasaw) is a disabled queer poet and teaching artist from Seattle, and has spent most of her work time working with youth. She’s received fellowships and residencies from Jack Straw, Artist Trust, and the Seattle Repertory Theater, among others, and is a proud alum of Hedgebrook and of the MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts. She lives in Tacoma with her cat and is always questing for high-quality dairy-free baked goods. Arianne is the 2023-2025 Washington State Poet Laureate. Poems List of poems attributed to the author. <ul><li><a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/show/751">Bedtime Story: The Girl and the Quarter Moon</a></li> </ul> Region The region of Washington State in which the author lives or has lived. South Puget Sound Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Arianne True Author Tag: activist Author Tag: American Indigenous/Alaska Native Author Tag: disabled Author Tag: impacted by poverty Author Tag: indigenous Author Tag: low-income Author Tag: neurodivergent Author Tag: polyamorous https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/81174/archive/files/33ea9ccc77a8bba144066e15ee668620.pdf?Expires=1779926400&Signature=eECzp9We1PyZ7S0gR7VbcbCO6uo5w5jp9VrU-DOZk8v4B1ueW8V8z3hwIQWftSP8EueY9iT7NU06AATPnZMir0okU3lUfo1pit2tZlHfOitd9zlOSfQa-ex3d1CMUSLwrUDSSA3jaWVWVcm0PPKuKYxO3GdQO7EGH-sguY2Kt9qWY9pXVZcZGuz1MbUzjT99tPXk76rQYDHieYQH-XWVAaOx7Ezxyu-FQ57A-ffPrpmlgNsA4Gw2exjn3IpCsStn1dFLYR44Bu1Y1Ux71B99DQhflIX155QTA%7EkfaNH%7Ej9WxeQGQsOvWPIBwfhdtF6qlXlJHTbtzYsaV7ZnktTB8cw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM af8e37f1289fae55b7267a847526a13c Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource All Anthology Poems Description An account of the resource This is a collection of all poems currently available to read in the Anthology. To browse poems by author identity tags, <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/tag-index" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">visit the tag index</a> or <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/search" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">try our advanced search</a>. Poem Contains text information about individual contributors to the anthology. Text Any textual data included in the document Preface I grew up on folk tales, not fairy tales at bedtime. a whole different set of stories and ways to tell them. different expectations. different lessons (I learned). my bedtime stories spoke of women finding ways not to be sacrificed. what I learned was people will leave you on the cliffside to wait for a monster who is coming to devour you—for their own peace what I learned was people will think some things are too big to fight and the way to get by in their shadow is to let women die to sate it what I learned was most of the time, you save yourself. you find a way to be clever or fast or loving enough to stop the monstrous cycle right before its jaws close around you. what I learned was not to expect to be saved but to know that if I was good enough at the right, constantly-changing things, I could save myself, most times. this carries through. still doing it. just learning now how to maybe stop playing this story out. I am tired of having to find the right way to be good enough to be allowed to survive. to claw out my own place with the paw I struck from the monster you left me out to feed. tired of the blood running down my body, from my body, leaving my body, leaving my body curled and confined in the softest things I have, but still, the nest I make for myself feels some days more like I have padded the trap I was set in as bait. lined the metal teeth with batting. they’ll still bruise, you know, through that. can still break an unsettled bone. some days it feels like there is no way I leave the trap and it doesn’t spring. Chapter 1 a quarter moon is a half moon, there are two ways of thinking about it. a full moon could be called a half moon, on the logic of a quarter moon – halfway through the cycle. there is no half moon, officially. whatever that means. which officials. sounds like there are two half moons to me. Chapter 2 I see half of the face that faces me. we call it quarter because of the cycle, the whole cycle of new moon to new moon, and this half-face marks the one-quarter point. but reading up on quarter moons, looking at diagrams of moon cycles, her face emerges in a new way, and the quarter I see is the quarter of the whole spherical moon, she round in every dimension. that far dark. calling her half-lit face quarter an answer, maybe, to the half we never see. this is what persuades me to quarter moon over half moon. all we can ever have is half the moon. and quarter moon reminds us that half the time, all we see is just half of that. Chapter 3 autism gave me words for things I was already doing: like masking. it applies elsewhere too, though, has shown up so many places in my life full of nooks, full of places someone else wants to forget. this is when, masking is when, you feel safer hiding who and how you be because the society you live in has convinced you (often accurately – this part stings the most) that if you do not hide you, Bad Things will happen. to you. around you. because of you. and your not-hiding. it says do not show your autism. your adhd. your POTS, EDS, the other three, or what ill looks like in your body. do not show the way joy needs to fizzle out every finger when you get overwhelmed with it. do not show how some sounds, like the sound of the scrape of that knife on the ceramic plate, sizzle through your brain, pain searing and shaking you from the inside, literal pain, do not show it. do not show how hard it is to walk during a POTS episode, how hard it is to walk with long Covid, how hard it is to walk with two feet injured from your connective tissue disorder. do not need a wheelchair. do not look how you look when you need a wheelchair and don’t have one. do not look how you look when you need. do not let the expression drop fast from your face when you run out of the energy that holds it on. do not hold an expression (out of habit) past when you feel it. but do learn to fake the expressions that make other people feel comfortable. like the ones that make them feel like you’re listening because it’s how they listen, but keeping up the Listen face takes all your focus and you don’t hear a word. learn to hold these faces all day: at school, at work, around strangers, around people who insist that you’re friends. do not let these expressions drop. no matter what you miss. do not let them drop. Chapter 4 before I learned what masking was and what I really sounded like inside, with the filter of everyone else scrubbed off and my flesh close to bloody from it, before then I only ever showed a quarter moon. it was all I felt allowed. Chapter 5 there are two quarter moons: first and third. quarters. one is easy to see, it’s an evening rise, visible around sunset. the other, third quarter moon, is up when we are, most of us, asleep. the full moon is so bright with sun that the details get lost in the glare. this tenth-bright half-face quarter is where you see the relief of craters. I am told even binoculars will get you there. and see, when it is just the first quarter moon you see, that sunset staple, you will only know the ridges on a single side, one half of the moon. [interjection – one quarter. still half her face is always back, back away, you will only see half a half. it’s simple math. you may never see the other craters. and that can be okay. but you may never know that’s all you have. and not knowing is a different story.][whispered: you did not realize I was missing so many essential somethings.] Chapter 6 one eye cannot see the other. on a human face, on a moon face. I didn’t know I was missing the other half, the other half a half, either. it’s these past few years that have retaught me myself, the selves I found and then lost as a child, a tween, a teen, a twenty-something. even in private, I did not have me, not— not even close to the way it is now. this gift of my own fullness, access to a more actual me, one of the many strange presents illness has left at my door so far. I am glad I chose to unwrap. Chapter 7 but where did I really learn to hide? who taught me the world wasn’t safe for me? an inventory of me in the context of this country provides a case for hiding: my tribes survived based on how well they became invisible to white eyes the statistics for women receiving violence remain shocking a recent trip to australia drove this home: I noticed myself telling men when they were doing wrong and yelling at them when politeness didn’t work and for once, didn’t fear for my safety. a miracle. on returning home, I told a female friend about it. she said it sounded like an alternate universe. the time, less than five years ago, I had to hide in the basement of my house while my drunk, violent neighbor hurled homophobic slurs at the front door. last fall, when I felt a new foot injury burn into life, but was walking home alone, late, and remembered what they tell young gazelles: they pick off the weak and the sickly. do not look sickly. do not limp. you have to look strong enough to fight them off so they don’t try. and how much worse the pain was when I got home / from bearing all that weight. I’m not ready to tell strangers the inventories for being autistic ace both chronically and intergenerationally poor I’m not ready to talk about the intersections but another strange gift of illness: all this extra time I spend at home is time I’m not being harassed. Chapter 8 I don’t fault myself for hiding. I celebrate learning to come out anyway. I would like to get to make only that decision, to feel safe enough to always choose it. here is my request: consider—have you taught me to hide? you. every you. it can be smaller than you think. smaller than you think you can see. but I promise you can learn. wake up for the sunrise to see that other half moon, that other quarter, in detail. you will notice the craters. no microscope. no telescope. they are so visible when you look the right way. I have already shown you so many, close up. like this. Chapter 9 my love is one of the first to really see the back, the proverbial dark side of the moon, the half that gets forgotten when you call a quarter moon a half moon. she said she wanted to see whatever was there. I finally believed that what was there was worth loving, could be shown to the right people. and she was willing to walk around, to the side you can’t see from here, and I want to convey how sincere this is and how much that mattered. to someone who has been taught you hide whole selves to survive or be loved. it was old and it was recent. and she said “I want it all” and I said “I wouldn’t want anyone who wouldn’t” and these are why it’s different this time. Chapter 10 all the years of hiding and pushing through, saving yourself and finding the ways to be good enough not to be killed, living by the merit du jour, these will run you into the ground. my bedtime stories would always end before the heroines could get the chronic illnesses we get when we overclock ourselves to survive. illnesses we then have to hide. the phases are a cycle. new moon to new moon. have you ever seen the whole face? — <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/show/752" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Arianne True</a> Note: “Bedtime Story: the girl and the quarter moon” first appeared in ANMLY #39, October 2024. Content Warnings Warnings about any potentially harmful or triggering content present in the text. illness medical trauma violent imagery lack of acceptance Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Bedtime Story: the girl and the quarter moon Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Arianne True Author Tag: activist Author Tag: American Indigenous/Alaska Native Author Tag: disabled Author Tag: impacted by poverty Author Tag: indigenous Author Tag: low-income Author Tag: neurodivergent Author Tag: polyamorous Content Notice: illness Content Notice: lack of acceptance Content Notice: medical trauma Content Notice: violent imagery Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Contributing Authors Description An account of the resource This is a collection of all authors who have contributed to the Anthology. To browse authors by identities, <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/tag-index" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">visit the tag index</a> or <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/search" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">try our advanced search</a>. Author Contains a poem written in plain text. Author Biography Biographical information about a person. I’m a neurodivergent, chronically ill queer person and have lived in Bellingham, WA since 1996, when I was 18 years old. My great overarching special interest is food, and I cook and bake all manner of seasonal vegetarian food. I am also an avid motorcyclist, especially motocamping, and am working on becoming a published motorcycle travelogue author. In my spare time, I read a lot of nonfiction science and anthropology, as well as science fiction, classic literature, short stories, and poetry, including Spanish language poetry. When I was a child, on long car trips, I used to think the moon followed me home. Poems List of poems attributed to the author. <ul><li><a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/show/749">love poem to the moon</a></li> </ul> Region The region of Washington State in which the author lives or has lived. Northwest Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Cordelia Ridley, xe/xyr or they/them Author Tag: activist Author Tag: atheist Author Tag: bisexual Author Tag: demisexual Author Tag: disabled Author Tag: genderqueer Author Tag: impacted by poverty Author Tag: low-income Author Tag: neurodivergent Author Tag: pansexual Author Tag: parent Author Tag: queer https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/81174/archive/files/9cd639b6a476865b005e5c0548f0fe82.m4a?Expires=1779926400&Signature=OEpJjYteZBMah7WIRvcVuatfhE8KK3Dq2npBV5JEkc%7EtTEl7PaVSYmooFVV64PfkPRKrhvfWp19G%7E0duDSbGksuM%7EVbmsvFq60fCr0IJNAu7w%7EwRYI8QzQRfD-KGBCFnkUxEr7P-s-k34uscbUZKuOIgyue%7EFRQIkwkcmbB1BkoSZQTKMZqkGSgoZRzdQC1HxlU7KlvW0pIQrduHHeu0DeMcUmzl13nsZEjaHSZsqjNcDYXyIObh6yGjb37uXrLFmXs95ANp5KO1II3KFj7c7m7eBStWFlVuL-lCGK1mJ0V551Se0iw4hkXDfM3UOpu1ljsYr8fwM6wF7Z2vzVUHiw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 8540c011efd6b93bdfe5cc276043f02b Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource All Anthology Poems Description An account of the resource This is a collection of all poems currently available to read in the Anthology. To browse poems by author identity tags, <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/tag-index" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">visit the tag index</a> or <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/search" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">try our advanced search</a>. Poem Contains text information about individual contributors to the anthology. Text Any textual data included in the document I have been as full as your beauty since I met you. Now this glowing with your rays is all to me. Let me be your moon. Let me circle around your beauty in awe of the honor of spinning. Let me taste you like cream from the top of sunlight's milk. Let me feel your pull change the rhythms of my inner tides. Pull me in towards your deep, dry ocean of dreams. Let me come to you behind midnight clouds. Let me see you in secrecy. Do you sleep beneath those charcoal veils or when you hide from prying eyes, full in your newness? Let me slip into that dark with you, and sit by your side and strain to feel the moonbeams of your dreams. Let me sing you to sleep, for you have taught me to sing, singing softly in those silent moments alone with you, moon. Let me come to you nightly, like a lover. Let me read to you the poems you have written on my heart. Let me touch you, moon, that I might know you are true. Let your light stain my fingers and remain in my blood. —<a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/show/750">Cordelia Ridley, xe/xyr or they/them</a> Note: you can listen to this poem read by the author, accessible via the Files. Content Warnings Warnings about any potentially harmful or triggering content present in the text. sensuality Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource love poem to the moon Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Cordelia Ridley, xe/xyr or they/them Author Tag: activist Author Tag: atheist Author Tag: bisexual Author Tag: demisexual Author Tag: disabled Author Tag: genderqueer Author Tag: impacted by poverty Author Tag: low-income Author Tag: neurodivergent Author Tag: pansexual Author Tag: parent Author Tag: queer Content Notice: sensuality https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/81174/archive/files/136a44a90b517a25d90c5653ec75faf3.jpg?Expires=1779926400&Signature=QLNyAONqzgbbz5GJx5qN66ofBrbSmvTiPRyR-%7E7F9Fjdfj%7EPAr1xIxEQS44e3cXawHTlN0hWsgMalXiLORGyu6mSPdEf0bH7f088hHKWHiZMp7h%7E1sqZC4scsP2kThjQ1TesbS84NbiOX14NTdeHGotGmeuN-kLSUG6GeVbUIAEHEFAQvIlC09QdV3ECryiRLT6wVKjcbkcVbqLT8nLk4d6SzsifbUfr4QB4-OmFxrk21OF%7ExWc%7ECGk6pG4E2B4mLIz2H68U9Egyf1sMlPhbRf9I5lcTYl99CF%7EpVo%7EpZQsMTWjpgVq-DJTyvKDNi28jGizWncdLlFJVrp%7EC9wi%7EXw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 0911e8491c8b65af6d880b02ac0f390b Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource All Anthology Poems Description An account of the resource This is a collection of all poems currently available to read in the Anthology. To browse poems by author identity tags, <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/tag-index" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">visit the tag index</a> or <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/search" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">try our advanced search</a>. Poem Contains text information about individual contributors to the anthology. Text Any textual data included in the document *Note: Because of the formatting of this poem, it cannot be displayed on screen. Please read it as a PDF, accessible via the Files. Author: <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/show/375">Poppy Yozh (they/them)</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Root Bound Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Poppy Yozh (they/them) Author Tag: activist Author Tag: demisexual Author Tag: gay Author Tag: impacted by poverty Author Tag: low-income Author Tag: neurodivergent Author Tag: polyamorous Author Tag: Polysexual Author Tag: queer Author Tag: transgender Author Tag: white https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/81174/archive/files/e6cb4291a7c81862fb906946a141969d.pdf?Expires=1779926400&Signature=Xs-j6dipzOK2UmYkopt1hRs%7EnM9NbR0EeAqcZ7oLVzdxISxQSy5yQofERzWErMvyqyrWfz1IrWOOPKTNh4vOIReLIC4eHStRwzyKteMTDcWGpdgxAocWSixTzZHtFwZeJYh3sybPqb6rkU4L94Koj6yt8JaYC1pOR3C337o%7EmP3Lx%7EI2C6Q%7E0O1hpQ1%7EzJC2C1tlcXjrPq2bKURADZo2unCzlshiT4bP7as6PAoKBimZVlURyDPiNcOtb4AFMDbL7SkCK3LQkvvafpXZSvoffz9CNBRvllBL6wR5bg1tSvneOz%7EBWbgi2jwoxw334zHtp64v0vBRFaSeyz3Sjqueyw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 08c5870e610df0d95f78c17af8d3c9be Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource All Anthology Poems Description An account of the resource This is a collection of all poems currently available to read in the Anthology. To browse poems by author identity tags, <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/tag-index" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">visit the tag index</a> or <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/search" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">try our advanced search</a>. Poem Contains text information about individual contributors to the anthology. Text Any textual data included in the document *Note: Because of the formatting of this poem, it cannot be displayed on screen. Please read it as a PDF, accessible via the Files. Author: <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/show/631" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Clare Johnson</a> First published in Seattle Review of Books on Aug 9, 2016. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource There's Something Else Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Clare Johnson Author Tag: activist Author Tag: disabled Author Tag: dyke Author Tag: gay Author Tag: genderqueer Author Tag: lesbian Author Tag: low-income Author Tag: neurodivergent Author Tag: queer Author Tag: white Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Contributing Authors Description An account of the resource This is a collection of all authors who have contributed to the Anthology. To browse authors by identities, <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/tag-index" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">visit the tag index</a> or <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/search" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">try our advanced search</a>. Author Contains a poem written in plain text. Author Biography Biographical information about a person. Dove S. is a poet based out of Washington state. It started off it's career in writing in high school, being published in their first collection at the same time. Since then they have published a chapbook titled "Me and My Dead Body" through bottlecap press and started attending college for creative writing. Currently it is working on a longer poetry book about disability and love. Poems List of poems attributed to the author. <ul><li><a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/show/705">I'll beg for love and in the same breath beg you not to touch me</a></li> </ul> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Dove S. (they/it) Author Tag: activist Author Tag: Aromantic Author Tag: Asexual Author Tag: atheist Author Tag: disabled Author Tag: genderqueer Author Tag: low-income Author Tag: neurodivergent Author Tag: queer Author Tag: transgender Author Tag: white Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource All Anthology Poems Description An account of the resource This is a collection of all poems currently available to read in the Anthology. To browse poems by author identity tags, <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/tag-index" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">visit the tag index</a> or <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/search" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">try our advanced search</a>. Poem Contains text information about individual contributors to the anthology. Text Any textual data included in the document I was a fingerbreadths from love. Then I got lost in the snow. Love me from a distance or not at all, love me through the window, love through the locked door, love me from across the country, over state lines and timezones- love me three hours ahead. There's only so much love I can take before I start to be seen. We can only get so close before we start to merge into one creature- grotesque with desire, our exposed and fractured rib cageholding a single rotting heart It’s cold out here, is what I mean. It’s freezing, the hum drum dullness, rain on a roof and the rumble of trains, sensation and sound and- skin, split open you can see is just another organ. The clouds roll in. It’s looking like another storm, but then you press knife to chest and heart bursts out- here is my devotion, staining your sleeve. Love is a disease, it’s a contagion. It lines my lungs in with mold- touch me and feel your fingers sink into my skin, soft with decomposition. Love me too much and with too many hands and I'll swallow you whole. I don't want you to see the gaping maw inside of me, the emptiness behind my skin, all decay black and thin blood, I’d rather let you think I was clean and not hemorrhaging devotion. I’d rather you not see the bloodstains. You were never supposed to stay, is what I mean. The archeologists who find us won’t be able to see us as anything but one strange creature- bones intertwined and preserved tissues melted together. I suppose with contagions there is little to do other than burn. The thing with burning is that it purges the parasite, sure, but where does that leave you and me? Dust and ash and begging for it to stop? It might be better with this: me curled up a few steps from the porch and you inside. Me, freezing from tongue to teeth to lips curled in the shape of your name. You, asleep in bed, finding me in the morning when everything that needed to be said has already been spoken out loud. There’s a hollowness at the center of me with room for two. I’ll keep the door locked and let you believe I'm whole enough to love, but in thousands of years when my bones are exhumed they’ll see that love is an infection that consumed me down to the marrow. I’ve heard heaven is cold to the touch, is what I mean. I’ve heard it’s always snowing and the angels are all made by children and the fingers are always blue. I’ve heard it's cold. You wake up three hours before me and I’ve been dreaming of you the whole time, your blurry face an echo across the long stretch of land. Your name hitch-hiked thousands of miles to crawl into my mouth and rest heavy and bitter and burning on my tongue like stomach acid- if we’re not careful it’ll kill us both. I dream of you and swallow down the poison of longing and do not rest easy. You built me a home with no windows, is what I mean. Build me a city too, call it holy land, hallowed land, church cemeteries house enough corpses that I can’t be lonely anymore. I’m tired, is what I mean. There’s food on the table but it’s rotten. There’s knives in the kitchen but they’re dull. I’ll love you forever, I mean. But I won’t get close enough to touch. —<a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/show/707" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Dove S. (they/it)</a> Content Warnings Warnings about any potentially harmful or triggering content present in the text. violent imagery visceral body imagery mental health suicide or self-harm (including ideation) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource I’ll beg for love and in the same breath beg you not to touch me Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Dove S. (they/it) Author Tag: activist Author Tag: Aromantic Author Tag: Asexual Author Tag: atheist Author Tag: disabled Author Tag: genderqueer Author Tag: low-income Author Tag: neurodivergent Author Tag: queer Author Tag: transgender Author Tag: white Content Notice: mental health Content Notice: suicide or self-harm (including ideation) Content Notice: violent imagery Content Notice: visceral body imagery Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource All Anthology Poems Description An account of the resource This is a collection of all poems currently available to read in the Anthology. To browse poems by author identity tags, <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/tag-index" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">visit the tag index</a> or <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/search" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">try our advanced search</a>. Poem Contains text information about individual contributors to the anthology. Text Any textual data included in the document i want i want i want (what do i want?) i want to open my mouth until my jaw c r a c k s and swallow the world and all that lies within it (the butterflies and butter knives and rivers and mountains and moss and rotted logs and new green shoots and planks of wood and deep sea creatures and the smallest little mice ) or maybe just you or maybe just both of us or maybe only me in all my poems i say, does this make sense? (i want to know if the spell is working) i want it to all be so different than it is i want to live a whole new life i want to move to another city i want to feel my bones melt and stretch my skin easily into all that could be i want to become i want to get further away from you so that i can get closer to you how can i rearrange all of the world to suit my wants? (and even if i took it inside of me, even when i take you inside of me, it is still the unknown just lodged within my confines) and what other choice do i have? because what other way is there to make a life? to build day upon day upon day upon day? —<a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/show/579" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">jesy m rice</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource i want to know if the spell is working Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource jesy m rice Author Tag: lesbian Author Tag: low-income Author Tag: neurodivergent Author Tag: nonbinary Author Tag: polyamorous Author Tag: white Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource All Anthology Poems Description An account of the resource This is a collection of all poems currently available to read in the Anthology. To browse poems by author identity tags, <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/tag-index" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">visit the tag index</a> or <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/search" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">try our advanced search</a>. Poem Contains text information about individual contributors to the anthology. Text Any textual data included in the document i want my joy a bouncy-bottomed young thing, with more energy than i can comprehend for that which will bring me pleasure. i want debaucherous joy, sweet, slippery joy, a joy that can come again and again and again unceasing. i want to hit joy's freak button. to get all the way down & nasty with joy, walk around smelling like joy just came all over my face and i couldn't get drunk on joy fast enough to catch it all. i want joy to stain my clothes, i want joy so delicious i mourn what spills onto the floor, so i serve myself another helping. i want joy to want me. to ask for me in the middle of the night; to choose me as the best cuddle buddy. i want joy to be fucking real. for joy to show up with a whole self. teach me something about how to mend. show me the best way to shine. —<a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/show/450" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Amber Flame</a> Listen to the author read p.y.t. here: <a href="https://youtu.be/Mjh5hYn8doo">https://youtu.be/Mjh5hYn8doo</a> Content Warnings Warnings about any potentially harmful or triggering content present in the text. erotic (explicit) swearing Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource p.y.t. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Amber Flame Author Tag: activist Author Tag: agender Author Tag: Black or African American Author Tag: disabled Author Tag: genderfluid Author Tag: genderqueer Author Tag: impacted by poverty Author Tag: low-income Author Tag: parent Author Tag: polyamorous Author Tag: queer Content Notice: erotic (explicit) Content Notice: swearing Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource All Anthology Poems Description An account of the resource This is a collection of all poems currently available to read in the Anthology. To browse poems by author identity tags, <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/tag-index" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">visit the tag index</a> or <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/search" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">try our advanced search</a>. Poem Contains text information about individual contributors to the anthology. Text Any textual data included in the document Blue sky and cool grass, yet the beautiful day is tinged with melancholy. And my body prepares for the grief that hasn’t started yet. Winding up the path of your gaze, scrutinizing every infinitesimal detail, I know you’ve given up on me. And I am left to keep a remnant of you while blinded by the desert dust of lament. However, like a child to their tattered old blanket, I must learn to live without you, and let go of both the kindness and cruelty you’ve given me. It’s not just because of you. It never has, and never will. The sun patches that peek through the tree branches, and the murmur of nearby conversation remind me of how alien I am. But the drought in my heart will eventually pass. And the gentle rain will fall on me, the memory of joy and beauty fresh in my mind. Life offers pain in the shape of beautiful gifts, but either way, I’m grateful for how its prismatic hues color my mind. And I will still live as a soft and hopeful creature of summer whispers and mourning doves. —<a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/show/374" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Melanie Steier aka "Mielnah" (she/her)</a> Content Warnings Warnings about any potentially harmful or triggering content present in the text. grief Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Heart Trails Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Melanie Steier aka "Mielnah" (she/her) Author Tag: activist Author Tag: bisexual Author Tag: Femme Author Tag: Hispanic or Latine/o/a/x Author Tag: immigrant Author Tag: Jewish Author Tag: low-income Author Tag: neurodivergent Author Tag: white Content Notice: grief Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource All Anthology Poems Description An account of the resource This is a collection of all poems currently available to read in the Anthology. To browse poems by author identity tags, <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/tag-index" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">visit the tag index</a> or <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/search" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">try our advanced search</a>. Poem Contains text information about individual contributors to the anthology. Text Any textual data included in the document Emily Dickinson goes to her first slam at 14. She brings a journal full of feathers and bees. She wears a cardigan over a printed button up her father said was too loud, which she leaves on a chair almost immediately. It will be there when she comes back. She reads a piece about grass. It’s actually about longing. It’s actually about a girl. She doesn’t know how to use the microphone. The judges award her an average of 4.8 points, but everyone encourages her to come back. Which she will never do. She goes home alone. Emily Dickinson goes to her first slam at 19. She crushes the 1-minute rounds, each sundrenched word magnified to scorching. A boy offers to buy her a drink. A girl offers to buy her a drink. But her eyes are already swirling, soul expanding beyond her fitted pants and high-necked starch. Already absorbing the ether of applause. She runs outside. Stands in the chill autumn with the smokers, gasping against an empty night begging to be filled with anything. Emily Dickinson goes to her first slam at 24. She does not read from a notebook, does not hide her slender fingers in a deep pocket. She recites a piece about spring that’s actually about a girl, actually about being a girl, it’s funny, and she knows it, and the audience steeps in her sonics like sweet tea. She goes up again with a piece about pain. Two men leave in a huff. No one misses them. She tries a stunt towards the end, pulls flower petals from her sleeves, but they spill out too early and everyone sees her wince, tells her to go in, and she snaps out an ending dark and crisp as winter dawns. A boy offers her a drink. A girl offers her a drink. Later she will write a poem about following the girl down concrete steps to taste her kiss. She will use plums for central imagery. The poem will be a lie or a wish or NSP entry. She goes home alone. Emily Dickinson goes to her first slam at 35. She wears the white dress, but only to be ironic. She doesn’t bring a notebook. In the first round, Emily stares out into a crowd that has already cast her in a play she’s no interest in starring in, there are so many better stars to hold her gaze, her gay lives in sundrenched fields, she would much rather welcome them to count her feathers, feel the seasons murmur their own secret longings with her breath across their necks. But not tonight. She steps up to the mic and with the calm fury of a spring-thaw stream invites Billy Collins to fuck right off into the sun. She gets all 10s and goes home alone. —<a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/show/680" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">R. Thursday</a> Content Warnings Warnings about any potentially harmful or triggering content present in the text. alcohol swearing Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Emily Dickinson goes to her first slam Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource R. Thursday Author Tag: activist Author Tag: Asexual Author Tag: Asian or Asian American Author Tag: bisexual Author Tag: Christian Author Tag: demisexual Author Tag: genderqueer Author Tag: impacted by poverty Author Tag: low-income Author Tag: Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander Author Tag: neurodivergent Author Tag: pansexual Author Tag: polyamorous Author Tag: queer Author Tag: Rural community member Author Tag: transmasc Author Tag: white Content Notice: alcohol Content Notice: swearing Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource All Anthology Poems Description An account of the resource This is a collection of all poems currently available to read in the Anthology. To browse poems by author identity tags, <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/tag-index" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">visit the tag index</a> or <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/search" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">try our advanced search</a>. Poem Contains text information about individual contributors to the anthology. Text Any textual data included in the document In 1891, Hans Christian Anderson was informed the man he was in love with was getting married…the next day. The groom was worried Hans would make a scene but luckily, he only absolutely justified that by reciting extended passionate poems about the man in front of God and everyone. The bride didn't even have the decency to be anything but lovely, so gentle, he couldn't even hate her for being with someone Hans claimed he loved as a woman, his longing forced to be secret, that is silent. In 1989, I see my first movie in theatres: The Little Mermaid. Picture me holding a Minnie Mouse doll, my legs lost in sequined fin, my 2 year old frame obscured beneath pink nylon with shiny purple shells, a smile so broad from a mouth so big it is the widest gate to barrel an army of insults through, the softest target. My first conviction, condemned to be labeled repeat offender. “You talk too much.” You know the story, right? She doesn't listen. She wants a body she wasn't born with. Sacrifices speech to be seen without drowning. It's obvious, when you think about it. I have written so many poems apologizing for their own noise and others where I pretend to be proud of the volume. When I cried, my voice splintered exactly like my mother's, exactly how she earned the nickname Squeaker, a not-gentle-enough judgment, which never stopped her from calling me big mouth. We have always loved like oceans. Which is to say, crushingly. Hans sent the man a handwritten original draft. The soft femme. The separated lover. The silencing. In the first version, there is no redemption, just the fall into the sea, just the foam and oblivion, too bleak to publish so after, the added promise of heaven, the potential for a more real self the next go around. I don't have long straight hair or need to cover my chest with any shell but what armor I choose, but when my mother asks if “losing my beautiful voice” is a trans thing, I am on the ocean floor, barely tethered. I am afraid if I open my mouth, the tidal forces of decades being mocked, dismissed, indicted for the squared volume of my words will rip all the forced silences from my secret grottos and spill them across her floor. I want her to stop apologizing for all the witches who have shown me magic. But the question is a conch shell curling infinitely with generational history and it has stolen my voice. In the story, every step on tender new legs is agony, but the mermaid dances for the Prince anyway. We are never allowed to complain about the wreckage of getting what we asked for, no matter who leaves us, no matter who lets the silences swallow us in the surf. —<a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/show/680" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">R. Thursday</a> Content Warnings Warnings about any potentially harmful or triggering content present in the text. family trauma or domestic violence mental health lack of acceptance Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Poor Unfortunate Souls Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource R. Thursday Author Tag: activist Author Tag: Asexual Author Tag: Asian or Asian American Author Tag: bisexual Author Tag: Christian Author Tag: demisexual Author Tag: genderqueer Author Tag: impacted by poverty Author Tag: low-income Author Tag: Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander Author Tag: neurodivergent Author Tag: pansexual Author Tag: polyamorous Author Tag: queer Author Tag: Rural community member Author Tag: transmasc Author Tag: white Content Notice: family trauma or domestic violence Content Notice: lack of acceptance Content Notice: mental health Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource All Anthology Poems Description An account of the resource This is a collection of all poems currently available to read in the Anthology. To browse poems by author identity tags, <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/tag-index" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">visit the tag index</a> or <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/search" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">try our advanced search</a>. Poem Contains text information about individual contributors to the anthology. Text Any textual data included in the document I keep reminding my students: it’s not lead, it’s graphite - bears more composite connection to diamonds, to them - not lead, different stone – pulled from different earth - soil soul, soiled by gunpowder. Lead leads to links of homo phones, graphs, nyms; leads to lessons on meta phor: foreign fatalities, familiar frictions. No, friends, your writing can’t poison you, not like that anyway. Yes, there was lead once, in the paint, the yellow shot through, as they say, pumped full of lead. I wish I could promise the world was softer now. Graphite is the gentle carbon dreams of. Wish I could tell you we replaced all the lead in the water, the air, the bodies, returned to the soil, teleported out as easily as paint - I wish the only thing that could harm you were words easily erased, replaced, taken back, trans/muted to something more like gentle. Pens may brag of strength, hold their own in battle, held the way we love anything that takes the world down with us, links through destruction, wounds wound tight together, but this smudge is so much more promise, potential, not like lead, “the opposite of a gun is whatever it's pointed at.” Remember, diamonds are forever, and isn’t that a kind of air, I mean oxy/moron, whatever you choose not to undo is what will last, isn’t that better than just what knows only how to end? —<a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/show/680" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">R. Thursday</a> Note: “the opposite of a gun...” is from Brendon Constantine’s ‘The Opposites Game.’ Content Warnings Warnings about any potentially harmful or triggering content present in the text. violent imagery Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Putting the Meta in Metonym Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource R. Thursday Author Tag: activist Author Tag: Asexual Author Tag: Asian or Asian American Author Tag: bisexual Author Tag: Christian Author Tag: demisexual Author Tag: genderqueer Author Tag: impacted by poverty Author Tag: low-income Author Tag: Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander Author Tag: neurodivergent Author Tag: pansexual Author Tag: polyamorous Author Tag: queer Author Tag: Rural community member Author Tag: transmasc Author Tag: white Content Notice: violent imagery Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Contributing Authors Description An account of the resource This is a collection of all authors who have contributed to the Anthology. To browse authors by identities, <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/tag-index" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">visit the tag index</a> or <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/search" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">try our advanced search</a>. Author Contains a poem written in plain text. Author Biography Biographical information about a person. R. Thursday (they/them) is an educator, historian, writer, and all-around nerd. When not subverting middle school Social Studies curricula, they can be found reading, playing video games, or writing about vampires, comic books, space, monsters, queerness, and on very good days, all of the above. They live in South King County, Washington, with the world's most copacetic cat. Poems List of poems attributed to the author. <ul><li><a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/show/681">Putting the Meta in Metonym</a></li> <li><a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/show/682">Poor Unfortunate Soul</a></li> <li><a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/show/683">Emily Dickinson Goes to her First Slam</a></li> </ul> Region The region of Washington State in which the author lives or has lived. South Puget Sound Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource R. Thursday Author Tag: activist Author Tag: Asexual Author Tag: Asian or Asian American Author Tag: bisexual Author Tag: Christian Author Tag: demisexual Author Tag: genderqueer Author Tag: impacted by poverty Author Tag: low-income Author Tag: Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander Author Tag: neurodivergent Author Tag: pansexual Author Tag: polyamorous Author Tag: queer Author Tag: Rural community member Author Tag: transmasc Author Tag: white Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Contributing Authors Description An account of the resource This is a collection of all authors who have contributed to the Anthology. To browse authors by identities, <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/tag-index" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">visit the tag index</a> or <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/search" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">try our advanced search</a>. Author Contains a poem written in plain text. Author Biography Biographical information about a person. Clyde Petersen is a transgender Northwest artist, working in film, animation, music and installation. He is the director of two feature films, Torrey Pines and Even Hell has its Heroes. Clyde performs with Northwest bands Your Heart Breaks and ManDate. Find out more at <a href="https://www.clydepetersen.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">ClydePetersen.com</a>. Poems List of poems attributed to the author. <ul><li><a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/show/670">Ballad of a Horse-Whisperer</a></li> </ul> Region The region of Washington State in which the author lives or has lived. Northwest Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Clyde Petersen Author Tag: activist Author Tag: atheist Author Tag: disabled Author Tag: low-income Author Tag: queer Author Tag: Rural community member Author Tag: transmasc Author Tag: white Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource All Anthology Poems Description An account of the resource This is a collection of all poems currently available to read in the Anthology. To browse poems by author identity tags, <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/tag-index" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">visit the tag index</a> or <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/search" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">try our advanced search</a>. Poem Contains text information about individual contributors to the anthology. Text Any textual data included in the document America the horror show Of failing infrastructure Where starving addicts seeking shelter Alongside crumbling freeways And scatter from our headlights As I steer down empty streets. No ramps, no access, no future We played a show on the lawn of a housing coop at U.C. Davis as another global genocide began. The dissonance, resounding. After the show The surprise of sprinklers More like tiny fire hoses Students scatter to contain them with buckets. I dove onto the merch to save what I could. The line scattered and reformed. We are drenched. They still want merch. We turned the southwest corner And drove straight into the dust storm. The car warned us but we didn’t listen. The Santa Anna winds vs Human Hubris. Maybe no one should live here. When the Earth shows you who she is, maybe we should believe her. In a penis shaped pool in Los Cruces, We swam from root to tip, sipping sodas developed in collaboration with A.I. You said “it tastes like a childhood memory of sucking on a dirty penny.” A plague of half-dead crickets coats the hotel, inside and out, twitching. Which seal have we unlocked today? 20 tiny half and half’s drained into a to-go cup for the parking lot stray cat. I am a menace to the free coffee in the lobby. We watched the eclipse from a hot tub in Kerrville. It was boring. It was enthralling. It took forever. Dehydrated and drained by moon magic and chlorine, we drove to Austin to play for the kids who couldn’t afford ACL. A sudden panic, Are they spider bites? This desert is full of death. Panic and stress and late-night anxiety. I’m gripping the wheel and we’re trying to keep it together. You’re thinking of all of the ways you can die. But it’s after midnight And we are deep in the desert trapped behind a double wide-load, occupying both lanes with a police escort Crawling down the side of a mountain at 10 miles hour. It is easy to feel alone in America. It is easy to feel alone in America. It is easy to feel alone in America. I googled the 7 seals and now my algorithm is fucked. —<a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/show/671" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Clyde Petersen</a> Content Warnings Warnings about any potentially harmful or triggering content present in the text. genocide addiction swearing Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Ballad of a Horse-Whisperer Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Clyde Petersen Author Tag: activist Author Tag: atheist Author Tag: disabled Author Tag: low-income Author Tag: queer Author Tag: Rural community member Author Tag: transmasc Author Tag: white Content Notice: addiction Content Notice: genocide Content Notice: swearing Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Contributing Authors Description An account of the resource This is a collection of all authors who have contributed to the Anthology. To browse authors by identities, <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/tag-index" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">visit the tag index</a> or <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/search" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">try our advanced search</a>. Author Contains a poem written in plain text. Author Biography Biographical information about a person. I've been adding old works to poetry soup and working on more poems. I'm hoping to have another book out and looking forward to mixing poetry with my sculpting. Poems List of poems attributed to the author. <ul><li><a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/show/649">- Let me know -</a></li> </ul> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Hannah Cherry (they/them/it) Author Tag: bisexual Author Tag: genderfluid Author Tag: low-income Author Tag: neurodivergent Author Tag: pansexual Author Tag: polyamorous Author Tag: Polysexual Author Tag: transgender Author Tag: white Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource All Anthology Poems Description An account of the resource This is a collection of all poems currently available to read in the Anthology. To browse poems by author identity tags, <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/tag-index" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">visit the tag index</a> or <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/search" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">try our advanced search</a>. Poem Contains text information about individual contributors to the anthology. Text Any textual data included in the document Killing me will not save you Saving me will not kill you Without a choice we’ll be stagnate forever. We will never get out of this hell by just sitting there. Now tap on the wall Scream at me, just once, it's okay I promise. But you don't save me and you only almost kill me. Could we just be normal? Do something to let me know you're not dead inside. Your silence is deafening My screaming doesn't make you move Not even a twitch Please say something I don’t care if you hit me Just let me know your still in there. Please mom, just let me know your still there. I can’t hold on much longer. —<a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/show/650" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Hannah Cherry (they/them/it)</a> Content Warnings Warnings about any potentially harmful or triggering content present in the text. violence abuse or trauma childhood trauma or abuse family trauma or domestic violence Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource - Let me know - Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Hannah Cherry (they/them/it) Author Tag: bisexual Author Tag: genderfluid Author Tag: low-income Author Tag: neurodivergent Author Tag: pansexual Author Tag: polyamorous Author Tag: Polysexual Author Tag: transgender Author Tag: white Content Notice: childhood trauma or abuse Content Notice: family trauma or domestic violence Content Notice: trauma or abuse Content Notice: violence Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource All Anthology Poems Description An account of the resource This is a collection of all poems currently available to read in the Anthology. To browse poems by author identity tags, <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/tag-index" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">visit the tag index</a> or <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/search" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">try our advanced search</a>. Poem Contains text information about individual contributors to the anthology. Text Any textual data included in the document i dread the pool. even though i love swimming, the other me had an easier time. i didn’t get pointed looks. or unconscious avoidance. because i wasn’t a man then. i am now. i am a man wearing women’s jeans and glittery makeup. i want the side eyes and the villainizing stories that fox news airs every other segment a formidable reminder of who i am. because my tears vaporize when someone calls my reclaimed name. in my community, who i found in reservoirs of love. and the concept of homophobia evaporates when my boyfriend smiles at me. and i fail to remember any reason for hating my queerness. —<a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/show/634" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Leonidas Dee Perry</a> Content Warnings Warnings about any potentially harmful or triggering content present in the text. lack of acceptance Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource the pool. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Leonidas Dee Perry Author Tag: activist Author Tag: Bigender Author Tag: bisexual Author Tag: low-income Author Tag: neurodivergent Author Tag: Rural community member Author Tag: transgender Author Tag: white Content Notice: lack of acceptance Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Contributing Authors Description An account of the resource This is a collection of all authors who have contributed to the Anthology. To browse authors by identities, <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/tag-index" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">visit the tag index</a> or <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/search" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">try our advanced search</a>. Author Contains a poem written in plain text. Author Biography Biographical information about a person. Leonidas Dee Perry is a writer from Wenatchee, Washington. Growing up in the valley as a queer individual, Leo often writes about mental health, and the struggle of LGBTQ+ youth in a rural area. Leo is an alumni of Eastmont High School and Wenatchee Valley College, where she gained a fascination with social justice and politics. Outside of writing and volunteering, Leo enjoys nature, and music. Leo’s writing is just a collection of his life, placed onto a piece of paper for everyone to see. Poems List of poems attributed to the author. <ul><li><a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/show/635" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">the pool.</a></li> </ul> Region The region of Washington State in which the author lives or has lived. South Central Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Leonidas Dee Perry Author Tag: activist Author Tag: Bigender Author Tag: bisexual Author Tag: low-income Author Tag: neurodivergent Author Tag: Rural community member Author Tag: transgender Author Tag: white Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource All Anthology Poems Description An account of the resource This is a collection of all poems currently available to read in the Anthology. To browse poems by author identity tags, <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/tag-index" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">visit the tag index</a> or <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/search" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">try our advanced search</a>. Poem Contains text information about individual contributors to the anthology. Text Any textual data included in the document But for her, I am only disappearing here. Cotton wads or sugar cubes bought specially, for if I see her again and she wants some. The novelty, the invention. Actually, the years collapse and research is only so much distance, I’m only assuming they existed. A luxury perhaps, or something the vet carried. It actually wasn’t until 1937 or 1923 or later in the 1800s I guess, I don’t know what past I’m aiming for. To be useful to her, to have a thought in her care. Maybe it’s a timeless kind of longing. The vet more important than a doctor, till an accident I suppose, till children and it’s whatever the men say, I keep to myself. I feel they feel I should understand what he’s doing but I’m something secretly unwomanlike, when he calls I feel outside and left-footed. Somewhere else lingers on me too. Elsewise everyone with rapid hands and matter-of-fact barns, they settle and settle and carry nothing with them, carry their ways as if they are the world. They’re raising further up the valley, they’re clearing and calling, flour and cattle in hand. I stand blousy in my cotton trousers and sweat from my nose. The heat only awkwardly on me and the cold much the same. We are some the same, I’d say to her. Standing a little taller, look up into my face. And here, take what you want. Yes it’s true. My unknowing limbs. I don’t know what the vet needs or when to call for him. Who would I have sent word with, who can step like kin across my door. I’d rather sink under history, my living beneath scrutiny, who could know what to do with kitchens and beds. I call no one to supper, my bread stays flat in my hand. —<a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/show/631" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Clare Johnson</a> Earlier versions of Unnamed and Unwomanlike were published together as part of "I Imagine I Come From Somewhere" in quiet Shorts Vol. I, Issue 4, Winter 2011. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Unwomanlike Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Clare Johnson Author Tag: activist Author Tag: disabled Author Tag: dyke Author Tag: gay Author Tag: genderqueer Author Tag: lesbian Author Tag: low-income Author Tag: neurodivergent Author Tag: queer Author Tag: white Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource All Anthology Poems Description An account of the resource This is a collection of all poems currently available to read in the Anthology. To browse poems by author identity tags, <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/tag-index" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">visit the tag index</a> or <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/search" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">try our advanced search</a>. Poem Contains text information about individual contributors to the anthology. Text Any textual data included in the document In that time a father just shifts, or maybe it’s mothers, or who knows anyone really. He teaches you some and holding an axe, before he peels away too, before the woods always belonged to someone and you have to look for work. It’s in the woods when you can and otherwise the fruit, get a little more if you set the ladders. You’re a slight stub when someone calls you a man but you thought you had so much growing before that. Or it’s just a fact, passed around from house to house. He’s only gone for poaching or some new woman. I’m not sure there’s such a thing as childhood then. He’s not your father quite just like a man knew your ma. You could set together some or learn a garden, you would work in the fruit and then a little bigger in the woods or selling, maybe it’s my imagination failing, maybe you laugh like a kid anyway and your garden pays for the school clothes is just oh that’s just how it was. Who pays for the house, or are you moving place to place still. The other men just men but you lower your lashes a breath, just so, I want the houses to empty as you grow, relations blankly peeled off in the woods. You blessedly beneath anyone’s notice. That father quick before he moved on, or your mother even, easy this one time as there’s no futures to worry, soon nothing shared. He’s setting a moment soon to thump the door, soon to grow you up that slow inch more. He’d pinch you off by habit but for leaving. There’s no reason to get real close. This is how I’m going to give you a future near impossible, a natural neglect that lets you bolt, you flower. Say that father never named it, maybe he says uncaring a little laugh, you’re the only one I ever seen. Be damned, laughing easing this one time, if you aren’t the only one I knew. Hold my future breath and wandering him carelessly out the door and bolt that door too. Later and looking over your shoulder a little but why not with another man, you find some words for each other later. When you are really grown, when this other flowered man asks somehow and puts his hand right there, just so. —<a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/show/631" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Clare Johnson</a> Earlier versions of Unnamed and Unwomanlike were published together as part of "I Imagine I Come From Somewhere" in quiet Shorts Vol. I, Issue 4, Winter 2011. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Unnamed Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Clare Johnson Author Tag: activist Author Tag: disabled Author Tag: dyke Author Tag: gay Author Tag: genderqueer Author Tag: lesbian Author Tag: low-income Author Tag: neurodivergent Author Tag: queer Author Tag: white Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Contributing Authors Description An account of the resource This is a collection of all authors who have contributed to the Anthology. To browse authors by identities, <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/tag-index" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">visit the tag index</a> or <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/search" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">try our advanced search</a>. Author Contains a poem written in plain text. Author Biography Biographical information about a person. Clare Johnson is a multidisciplinary writer + visual artist interested in celebrating overlooked spaces and histories, opening up connections/empathy by fostering intimacy in places we usually share anonymously. Honors include fellowships from Jack Straw, Hugo House and Crosstown Arts; residencies at Mineral School, Surel’s Place and James Castle House; and publications including Seattle’s Department of Neighborhoods' Seattle Histories series, where you can find her <a href="https://frontporch.seattle.gov/2022/04/18/seattle-histories-we-all-have-different-memories/">lyric essay about growing up queer on Capitol Hill</a> during the AIDS crisis in the 1980s and 90s. Recent public art projects include a <a href="https://artbeat.seattle.gov/2022/10/04/art-interruptions-2022-explores-history-connection-and-portraiture-along-delridge-highland-park-neighborhood-greenway/">scavenger hunt of art on the backs of traffic signs</a> (currently viewable in West Seattle), a mural around the entrance of DESC's Bloomside permanent supportive housing in Burien, and window art in Cal Anderson Park about HIV and family (the originals from which are on display at Gay City: Seattle's LGBTQ+ Center). Her recently completed hybrid manuscript, Will I live here when I grow up, mixes poetry, memoir, art, family stories and lost queer histories. For almost two decades Clare has also drawn/written on a post-it every night to hold onto something from each ending day, making over 6,000 pieces so far, which were excerpted for years in a monthly <a href="https://seattlereviewofbooks.com/writers/clare-johnson/">Seattle Review of Books lyric essay column</a>. Her new lyric memoir piece for <a href="https://trailoffquicklook.com/2024/09/06/theres-a-lot-i-dont-know-clare-johnson/">TrailOff</a>, an app combining stories with tailor-made walking routes and sound design, is available for free to experience in Seattle. <a href="https://www.instagram.com/clare.e.johnson">Follow Clare on IG</a> for more work and projects. Poems List of poems attributed to the author. <ul><li><a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/show/632" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Unnamed</a></li> <li><a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/show/633" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Unwomanlike</a></li> <li><a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/show/720">There's Something Else</a></li> </ul> Region The region of Washington State in which the author lives or has lived. North Puget Sound Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Clare Johnson Author Tag: activist Author Tag: disabled Author Tag: dyke Author Tag: gay Author Tag: genderqueer Author Tag: lesbian Author Tag: low-income Author Tag: neurodivergent Author Tag: queer Author Tag: white Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource All Anthology Poems Description An account of the resource This is a collection of all poems currently available to read in the Anthology. To browse poems by author identity tags, <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/tag-index" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">visit the tag index</a> or <a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/search" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">try our advanced search</a>. Poem Contains text information about individual contributors to the anthology. Text Any textual data included in the document of or arousing gratification of the senses and physical, especially sexual, pleasure. the state or situation of being alone We are never taught to love ourselves To love our own bodies We are taught to know the touch of another’s hand To want and desire this touch But we are not taught to know and love our own Touch We are not taught to Desire Our own touch But who is better at servicing the body we inhabit 24/7 At one point i started putting hormones into This body And then This body Changed It was a new body It was a new landscape And i became an Explorer I scouted out this new Terraine Surveyed the crests Discovered the caverns I began to accept this Sexual body I had a partner at the time Whose narcissism Could not tolerate This new found love of my own Body As it meant that the time I spent exploring Myself I was not exploring them I was not satiating their Desire For me to be an extension Of them I was not servicing their need For my servitude I tried to hide My new found Hobby From them The more i enjoyed myself The less i want to submit To their coercive subjugation The rift grew My independence over My own body Grew I now wanted Independence Over my life My love for myself became a Threat Our system Maintains control By teaching us Not to love Ourselves When we seek others to affirm Our sense of self We give over our power Self love is a Radical act For those of us who are Marginalized This might be thee most Radical act When we say not only I have a right to exist But also say I have a right to feel pleasure We learn to say I have a right to autonomy I have a right to love myself These are radical acts These are acts that we are Punished for These are words that Empower us These are words that Take our power back These are radical words The power to make ourselves feel good Creates autonomy Negates control Empowers the marginalized What would our world look like if we were To be Empowered Autonomous What better lovers Would we be If we Knew our own bodies Loved our own bodies Revelled in our own bodies If we loved our skin Be it Red, brown, black If we loved our gender Be it Trans, female, male If we loved our hair Black, kinky, thick, straight If we loved our lips Thick, thin, lipsticked If we love our eyes Round, almond, hazel, brown If we love our noses Flat, pointy, crucid If we love our hips Curvy, big, flat If we explore these places If we love these places If we vocalize our love for these places If we refuse dates because We want to instead love ourselves Sorry i cannot go out to night I am going to have hot steamy sex with myself I aint even gonna make it to the club Because i am feeling myself and i feel good I’m sure sex with you is great But can you make me orgasm as hard as i can Can you make me cum and cum again Just writing this i am getting a hard on For myself I can’t wait to be finished so i can get off But first i want to insure that you Understand I want you to also find Sensual solitude I want your hands to caress your body I want your skin to tingle at your own touch I want your nipples to get hard and erect I want the blood to flow into your penis/clit until it throbs I want juices to flow I want you to get flushed At the thought of yourself I want you to join me in this Radical act of Self love —<a href="https://waqueeranth.omeka.net/items/show/623" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">smitty buckler</a> Content Warnings Warnings about any potentially harmful or triggering content present in the text. erotic (explicit) abuse or trauma Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Sensual Solitude Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource smitty buckler Author Tag: activist Author Tag: American Indigenous/Alaska Native Author Tag: disabled Author Tag: genderqueer Author Tag: Hispanic or Latine/o/a/x Author Tag: Homeless or formerly homeless Author Tag: impacted by poverty Author Tag: indigenous Author Tag: low-income Author Tag: neurodivergent Author Tag: queer Author Tag: Rural community member Author Tag: Solo Poly Author Tag: transgender Author Tag: Two-Spirit Author Tag: Urban Native (displaced) Content Notice: erotic (explicit) Content Notice: trauma or abuse