Bio
Arlyn LaBelle is a queer poet and writer living in Austin, Texas. Their work has appeared in the Badgerdog summer anthologies as well as North of Oxford, The Oddville Press, Songs of Eretz, Grey Sparrow Press, Cease, Cows, Panoply Zine, and The Southern Poetry Review. Their premiere book of poetry, Measurable Terms, is available through The Main Street Rag.
Trigger Warning
I have painted my bones to a new color, one
unlike yours. What greater compliment
could I manage?
I lean against your wind, name my steps
to spite you.
Any day, your song could bloom in my skin,
rise my limbs to shaking, make me
swing against goldenrod limbs;
kill me in that I am
below you.
None could be where you stand,
the tower of eyes,
my childhood spent
to feed you.
Let me break myself
to grow a new shape; break
my arms so they may open.
Such a soft word, reset.