Lonely mountain town

imogen xtian smith, 2022

it's me again, come clean. i hid behind brown whiskers, whiskey & shame, cloistered in girlfriend's closets from folk who'd clock me faggot out F-150s, hang your head Tom Dooley stuck in their teeth. Camouflage & excess, white lines & booze---everything inside me cardinals, prunes, pulls a rosin gut drone to recollect. i say remember bb, your first dress? Pink & pretty with blue lattice & curls, looking all Christina from Christina's World, high country Carolina. It was easy getting drunk in leotard, laughing. Easy spending summer among laurel, forgetting Laurie Foster, dead femmes drowned & raised americana. More difficult to untwist the thorn, tongue jelly & cauterize, divest from fear within. Could i ever be one of them---like that woman i'd pass on King St., 14-eyed Docs & stubble chin, rouge lips & black dress buying goth CDs on weekends?

    Not exactly---also yes.

Here i am, soldered together with Marlboro kisses, Vintage Seltzer sober in floral print, alter for rhododendron & metro rat---swap Brown Mountain for cherry tips, Maria Hernandez & chosen fam bound deep as Hodges Gap.    Appalachia,
i paint my eyelids bluer than blue ridges so neither of us gotta look far to find. If you see me out your window, i'm every name you spit---friend, sister, brother, fag---clad shameless in Queen Anne's lace. Find me staring up Bed-Stuy beeches, a bit of my heart back on Beacon with the scrappy mountain ash. Lonely town, i can smile now, remembering that first girl i knew---warm at home & listening to The Cure. i dream a dyke bar for every hollow, queeraoke sluts singin' Tammy off key, highways safe for walking, ballads & barn quilts & string figures claiming joy. i dream we dredge rivers & find no women there.