The white/blue fin of the whale
ARI ISCARIOT
“You look good,” they say,
a hackneyed admission
I reply the same, veins
bursting with longing.
Our bodies rock in place
metronome perfection
aligned to each other’s
rhythms. Did they notice?
I haven’t forgotten
the timing of their spirit.
“Mine,” my ribs hiss,
tucked under their hands
(they say Adam took just
one, but I would give you ten)
greed that smothers
speech into stone.
My little bones weren’t meant
to hold all of this.
My soul too acute
to leave love I miss.
The stitching that sewed
my skin into shifts
is breaking at the screams
and fraying at the sins.
“Spare thread,” I reason
to loop shut my lips.
I have always been good
at killing confessions
before they can leave
the bassinet.
ARI ISCARIOT (they/them) is a queer, neurodivergent, chronically-ill author and artist from Florida who earned a BA (Hons) in Literature and Communications at FIU. Currently, they volunteer at the Brink Literacy Project, promoting the non-profit's outreach through social media and editing pieces for the F(r)iction magazine. Among their many hobbies, they DM for an insatiably chaotic DnD group and attend biweekly meetings with their (somewhat) less chaotic writing group, “Seaquills." But mostly, they write. Their writing centers intense queer relationships, indulges in the power of ravenous love, and explores the transgressive nature of gender-variant bodies.
