Confessional Poem
By Natasha Rao
Despite my efforts to remain indifferent, I hate that my boyfriend has dated girls with names I use all the time, like Summer and May. I hate that they have all been blonde, that they look like summer and May. Petalsoft, pink. I say I can't believe April is over and Finally, the warmest season, not wanting to remind him of their soft charms. Not wanting, myself, to imagine Summer's breezy laugh or May's gentle body unfurling around him.
The first time I had sex with someone white, I felt he was staring into the darkest parts of me, so I did all kinds of things to make him close his eyes. I want to ask my boyfriend if it was like that for him, with Summer after prom, if he felt his brown body darken next to hers like fruit in the sun.
But I know the answer. One night, thoughtlessly drunk on self-doubt and rum, I opened his journal. Oh, how he loved those blossomy girls. It was only when I saw my own name in careful handwriting that I shut the book and cried.
I confess: I am selfish. I just want to know that someday, if this world ends, there will never exist another in which your familiar mouth forgets the feel of my name.
The first time I had sex with someone white, I felt he was staring into the darkest parts of me, so I did all kinds of things to make him close his eyes. I want to ask my boyfriend if it was like that for him, with Summer after prom, if he felt his brown body darken next to hers like fruit in the sun.
But I know the answer. One night, thoughtlessly drunk on self-doubt and rum, I opened his journal. Oh, how he loved those blossomy girls. It was only when I saw my own name in careful handwriting that I shut the book and cried.
I confess: I am selfish. I just want to know that someday, if this world ends, there will never exist another in which your familiar mouth forgets the feel of my name.
Copyright Credit: Natasha Rao, "Confessional Poem" from Latitude. Copyright © 2021 by Natasha Rao. Reprinted by permission of Copper Canyon Press, www.coppercanyonpress.org.