My best poetry
comes from inside
the shower, water
turned full
blast on my upturned
visage.

I am truly naked,
baring all
in every
sense of the
word, and my thoughts
flow freely
through the churning
abyss.

© Rebecca Lee — 2012

Sometimes I look at you and I
wonder,
and I'm asking, "How
can you know yourself
so well and
not realize the power
you hold?"

I've spent so many nights feeling
just the way that you walk,
speaking your care into
my movement vernacular. It's
brilliant and your light
is like a thousand shining stars forming
clusters; clutter cannot even
begin to describe the
explosions in my
brain when your face crosses
my mind.

And on an island in the
far off
distance, a box of tiny
oranges is being
thrown in the ocean.

Have you ever wanted to know if
Orion could take off his
Belt? Ever
wondered what would happen
if he
chanced his luck
and fell?

Have you ever wanted to
taste the
light of a moonbeam, knowing the
warm rays of the sun could
turn at any
moment, scorching?

And have you ever
wondered
what it would be like to
bask in the air of an
earth-shattering
idea?

I used to think smoking was the
vilest self-harm, an act of
slow suicide, but
now that I've
memorized
the scent of
cigarette smoke clinging to your
guns, I
don't mind it so
much anymore. It is your
personal brand of
resistance
and it
colors your
existence.

But the entirety of your
body and soul
takes defiance as
a living goal, the way your eyes
flash when something upsets you, the way your
hair is cut short as a "fuck you!" to society, the way
your body
is angled, your stance just
enough...
is a form
of resistance.

The day I dyed my hair, I was
thinking that I had
wanted this blue since the
fourth grade, wanted to
be
exactly like Alex,
rebellion boiling deep in her
bones, but this was more
than a childhood
fantasy.

This too was a form
of resistance.

All my life, I have been
running, rushing off the beaten
path to find
that once I'm there,
my fair
share of the story
is only minimally
heard.

And so this resistance, this
bright blue on my
head, this identifying feature making
me myself and
me was
added to my
repertoire, yelling
"Look! I am
here!" No longer
invisible, I
weep, for my

brand of resistance
is the only thing that keeps me,
keeps me sane
and coexistent.

© Rebecca Lee — 2012

listless
it is a strange
molasses feeling

a passive affront
on the fast-paced, driven
academic insanity

my mind is afloat, the
conversation weaving
in and out and
apathetic

I am slow-moving syrup,
sipping my tea and
trailing into
the haze

© Rebecca Lee — 2012

Her words strike directly
at my heart, each phrase
strung together in a seamless
thread that threatens to tear the very
seeming of my existence.

And every moment I take to
breathe in time to her language
calls out another note to be sung.

This haze of vulnerability
is another page turned
as I am drawn into
the musicality of
her soul.

© Rebecca Lee — 2012

Being around you,
it's like floating on high,
and I can't seem to
stop my visceral reaction
when you enter the room
and smile.

Your joy is infectious
and I think I'm flying,
soaring even, but
then I remember I'm
afraid of heights
and with that, my
wings, they vanish.

We've only really
known each other
for a small sliver
of time, but
being with you defies
universal reality.

Your presence makes my
heart beat at the rate
of galloping mustangs
and it scares me
                  how quickly

                                   I fell.

© Rebecca Lee — 2012

[BOLDED PARTS: Credit to Abeer]

You were so, so excited
that day, so proud of the
"sensitivity" you were taught
to employ.

But it was nothing more
than the same old, "So...
where are you really from?"
disguised as "polite" and
"politically correct."

And because your
smile was so
infectious, I
accepted your words while
ignoring my heart —

"What ethnicity are you?"

— ignoring the off-kilter
cracks forming and
crawling, branching out like
fingers spread up the
dam(n) wall,
threatening any second now to

burst.

Still, I fell, was
caught in the
tourmaline can —
clan, fan, ban, pan, clap, gap, trap, flap, flack, pack, attack, perchance —

Because the truth was, I
wanted to know, as well.
I am implicated in
this culture, as well.

I did not have the
social consciousness
I claim to embody
now, but I guess even
subconsciously, I
realized there was something
wrong.

This is why
to this day
I remember.

So ask me what I am,
ask me where I'm from,
and I'll tell you I'm a
non-smoking queer from
the gay pot state.

And that's true, but (really)
what does it matter?

Short answer:
It doesn't.

© Rebecca Lee — 2012

Time passes by
but all I see
is your ever-
fleeing mist of
a face.

An unaccustomed hyacinth
blooming in the road, amongst
dead leaves and
crackling bramble trees,

you are everything, yet
nothing.
And you are always just
unreachable.

© Rebecca Lee — 2012

I want
to sleep, to
drift
into the
oceans of my capacity
to find the
clouds of insanity,
to hear that voice
calling, and to
float
uncaring
distracted
de-
tached.

© Rebecca Lee — 2012