DL Rose

“I have been drenched in you
I'm going about my day soaking
like us in Canons Park, when your car became a prison and I escaped to the side of the road and wept with the rain.
That day it understood me where you couldn't.
And held me when you wouldn't.
I'm soaking again.
So of course you have pushed your way into every conversation.
Even when I meet those polite folk who only as with their eyes. You spill from my mouth like a tsunami.
How vocal this lonely.
Sliding into every crevice of my day, I count the minutes by you.
It's been an hour and I haven't said your name. But still,
there is no getting away from this layer of wet skin sat on mine.
Where can I go this wet?
Where is quiet enough to listen to the little ripples
writing themselves along my arms, and then spend hours building those stories about how we would travel far from here and surf them once they grew into waves?
Everyone leave me alone today.
It's for me and the you of my mind to hold our breath
for as long as possible underneath our reality
which is this.”
― Sophia Thakur, Somebody Give This Heart a Pen

“On Why It’s A Threat
by Lynne Schmidt
The first time she is catcalled,
she is nineteen years old and
we are walking down the street,
dog leashes in hand, on a college campus
that is not ours but is close enough to be home.
Close enough that I should feel safe to walk my pets, go for a run, exist.
He rolls up, and I bristle when I hear the stop because it’s too soon,
and she mistakes the slowing for the sign at the end of the road.
My ears wait for what may or may not come next and sure enough
his voice rises just loud enough so we can hear it,
“I don’t know which is more beautiful, the dogs, or the girls walking them.”
Beside me, she stills, a deer in the sights of a gun,
eyes wild like prey
ready for fight or flight,
because she is.
Another youngest child seeking protection
when there may not be any safety to be had.
She does not realize she walks beside a bomb
who marched in DC against a rapist in seat,
who has been fighting off men like this since her knuckles could bleed.
I ignite for all the times she will be yelled at and
all the times my oldest sister has thrown me behind her
when the vehicles stop and the car doors open.
I position my body between her and this man,
the way my sister did for me,
a shell of a shield if need be,
grip the leash tighter with my hand
and demand he to keep driving.
My hands shake.
My voice doesn’t.
This is all I need her to hear.
His saccharine words turn to acid,
smile sliding off his face like an avalanche,
Bitch-cunt you have STIs I wouldn’t touch you with a ten foot pole
before his tires peel away pavement and leave us reeling in dust.
When we return home,
she is still shaking, and I am still furious.
She tells me she was scared she would be hurt,
or I would be hurt,
and I tell her, the same thing my sister told me,
I wouldn’t let that happen.
Later, when she tells her partner what happened,
he says,
“It’s not a big deal. Why are you acting like it is?”
― Lynne Schmidt

“When my youngest niece sees me in a swimsuit,
she peels various cloth to the side and reads the words I’ve painted on my skin.

Three years ago, when she was falling asleep,
she’d rubbed my arm.
Her small body stiffened with the question when she felt the raised flesh
but she didn’t ask.

Now they ask.

Now they tell me they love me.
My oldest niece still reaches for my hand when we walk on beach sand.
‘What happened to your arm?’ they say.
My mouth falls open.

I try to retch the words out,
try to explain something I’m not sure they’ll understand,
until I settle for silence,
because the language I would use
is a gunshot through their bodies.

How do you tell someone who loves you so much,
who runs across parking lots to jump into your arms
that you hate the person they love?”
― Lynne Schmidt, On Becoming a Role Model

“I have seen the moment

they pull my body from the water.



When they call my sisters,

one of whom I just got off the phone with,

she’ll say she didn’t want to talk.



The other sister will ask why I was out so far.

I’ve never been a strong swimmer.

They both have had to leave shore to rescue me before.



One will cry.



The fishermen, they’re the most likely to find me,

to pull me into their boat.



Perhaps for a moment,

they hoped I was a mermaid,

blessing their ship

rather than the lump shell of flesh

that gravity held too tightly to.



But,

on that night,

the water was too cold

because the sun had set hours before.



And so in an alternate universe,

my sisters got the call.



And in this one,

I watched the sun rise.”
― Lynne Schmidt