coming out

By Caitie L. Young

when she calls you beautiful

say thank you,

and let the fires rage

in the closet where you keep

your evidence against her,

where you keep your ugly,

where you keep your lies,

where you store your sunlight

in boxes on shelves in a

stockroom behind your secrets,

and let it melt like rain,

let it float like ashes in smoke

until you forget you are

anything less than a

beautiful thing,

let her words ring like

sirens or bells or birds

in your ear,

so when she calls you

beautiful you don’t hear

anything else.

---

Caitie L. Young (she/they) is a poet and fiction writer in Kent, Ohio. They graduated from Kent State University with a B.A in English; their poems have appeared in Luna Negra, Welter online at the University of Baltimore. They are also the first-place recipient of the 2020 and 2021Wick Poetry Undergraduate Scholarship.