My Soft Girl
Our love was exchanged in lavender on the west side of Central
Park / your honey breath / your velvet hair / your pupils filled
with dragonflies - missing me while I'm standing beside you. //
We promised a romance that would travel history & mountain
tops so we molded it into postage stamps / I kissed you hard into
envelopes. Your lips my first loved secret / turned revolution/
Your heartbeat my loudest battle cry. //
We stuffed our ears with love letters / our cheeks burning into
cherry blossoms / a strange man yelling about our holdings
hands / I could barely hear it over your laughter / The kind made
of rose tea with a pinch of sugar / You taught me a lexicon of
love language / You once told me, "I love you something
irrational." / Sunflower arms growing in the summer heat / we
wrapped each other into cocoons / a bite of whiskey / a dash of
ginger / a burn, something beautiful. //
I pinned your pride flag onto the wall directly in the center of
your new living room / you hugged me so tightly our bodies
turned to fireworks and set the ceiling on fire / You told me I am
your pride in real form / We could hear the neighbors screaming
but we made love beneath the flames and called it romantic /
You were the first person to make the term "making love" not
feel like crow’s feet around my eyes. //
In a different life: we never held our breath crossing the path of
the basilica / our spines never taught in fear / we smiled so big
our canines were the punctuation of the little dipper and we
never introduced each other as friends 'cause the world is a big,
round place with thousands of nouns and you / put doves in my
stomach //
We felt small in such a big city in the best way possible / when I
leapt into your arms and you spun me around so quickly / my
body became a helicopter / we saw the skyline at eye level / the
whole world would have wanted to be us if only they could see
past the buildings //
whoever claimed man as a protector / never loved a woman in
the daylight with her guard down / never held a woman’s hand /
never had to train their eyes to see behind them //
We squeezed each other’s hands as reassurance / when our
chests were filled with thunder / when our flesh raised goose-
bumps as surrender / when a woman screamed "dirty sinners" so
loudly our fists turned to bibles / just to melt on the sidewalk //
Your heart the size of our state capital / you gifted me lilies / our
love is a daring thing, we always said / so we dressed up and
slow-danced on the streets in the middle of Greenwich village /
where all the other daring queers kissed each other in public /
my soft, girl / my exhale / my triple-dog-dare kinda lover / our
moving feet a riot / history-bone rhythm / peonies growing at
our feet //
Skyler Jaye Rutkowski is a poet and the author of A Mountain of Past Lives & Things I've Learned (BlazeVOX, 2019). You will often find themes of being very pro-women and proudly queer throughout her work. She represented Buffalo, NY in the 2017 National Poetry Slam, and works with youth writers at the Just Buffalo Literary Center. Currently based in Nairobi, she is pursuing a Master’s in International Relations and Diplomacy, hoping to use her activism to influence policy first-hand. Her work has been published online and in print including: Emrys Journal, Rhythm & Bones YANYR anthology, Peach Mag, and more. Find her tweeting @SkylerJaye23