Histories
Have you ever searched for tunnels behind bookshelves? Have you ever zoomed out quickly on Google maps and felt afraid? Have you ever walked over to a window and reflected on your rural surroundings? Have you ever loved a flat place? Have you ever held a warped ruler in your hands? Have you ever desired intangibility in an overbright megastore? Have you ever cried to New Year’s movie scenes put to film in 1939? Does Auld Lang Syne get you every time? Have you ever saved a list of the 200 best sapphic movies to your phone notes? Do you look for the future in the past and the past in the future? Do you ever reimagine your queerness next to VHS tapes and internet cafés? Have you ever projected a light-show constellation on the ceiling in the middle of a plague? Do you ever imagine yourself calling collect in 1999, butterfly clips adorning your dirty blond hair? Have you ever drank a beer and told a secret? Have you ever watched someone build a fire from a distance? Do you think about all those bygone fires in the distance?
Source: Poetry (December 2024)