“I have a woman.” a poem about Chippewa gender nonconforming lesbianism by Bangishimog Ikwe

[image description: 3 images with white squares with black text placed in the middle of them. the first image’s background is clouds in the sky. On the white square the text reads “I don’t have a man. / I have a woman. / I have a woman / anything goes / he’s strong and protective / he isn’t afraid / to love me correctly / to adapt to my mannerisms”. the second image is of wrinkled black and red burning lava. the text reads “I have a woman / who I call my partner / who I call my boyfriend / who I call my girlfriend / who I call my lover / who I call inday / who I call niinnimoshenh”. The last background image is of a bedroom with a yellow bedspread and a large window & art on the walls. the text reads “I have a woman / who survived the worst calamities / who learned the hard way / who remained soft / who remained vulnerable / I have a woman / and I’ll be damned / if I said I didnt love him”. ]

this test of the mountain

when georges bataille wrote, “no greater desire exists than a wounded person’s need for another wound” & when gillian flynn wrote, “a child weaned on poison considers harm a comfort” & when ocean vuong wrote, “sometimes being offered tenderness feels like the very proof that you’ve been ruined” & when lisa m. basile wrote, “did you inherit a sickness? did you blame god? do you believe in god? do you believe in yourself? are you still on fire? did you ever put out the fire?” & when stephen a. guirgis wrote, “why didn't you make me good enough so that you could’ve loved me?”

ada limón, lucky wreck

heather havrilesky, ask polly

rayne fisher-quann, home for the holidays

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the incest diary

Shel Silverstein predicting ChatGPT in 1981

tbh i think this poem is better served with the *whole* picture, don't you?

on watching a parent age

i saw somebody say “what if you’re gone and i haven’t become anything yet” and basically that broke me on a random thursday evening

OP, this is genuinely a masterpiece, three poems in one, moving and well craft. Please tell me you have submitted it to at least some poetry contests, and if not, please do so.

something i have always found really weird is when english texts italicize words from other languages.

i remember reading a book as a kid and the author continually italicizing the word tamales

This is in no way the best way to post it but it is the only way I could get the format to stay

don't give up

makes me just think of this poem by Caitlin Seida

Anyway.

Hand on my heart. Hand on my stupid heart.

thinking about diomedes of argos

I will be coming back to this concept. We're not done here

“Upon Turning 25, A Small Nervous Breakdown” by Megan Williams

PRAYER FOR WEREWOLVES from We are Mermaids by Stephanie Burt

Franny Choi, Soft Science

"Dragon," poem assembled using quotations from Wikipedia articles