The thing about turning thirty during a pandemic

is that all I wanted to do was play spin the bottle
with all of my beautiful friends to celebrate hitting
an age that’s at least two years past when I thought
I’d have already killed myself, but instead I haven’t
kissed anyone in over a year despite falling in love,
despite myself, because the CDC is kink positive
and we kept the masks on because I know I need
to be better with boundaries but I knew enough to
abide this one in these trying times because the risk
of disease cannot stop my seeking heart, cannot
make me keep my hands to myself, cannot stop me
from chasing after the things I want, the people I want,
the love that I want, and I am not getting any younger,
or even any wiser, but I will love my people more and
more than I ever thought possible, because I have it
on good authority that we’re gonna fucking make it
through this because not making it through this is
not an option because we need each other now
and forever more than we have ever needed anything
and there is absolutely no going back to the way things
were and there is only a future that is wide open and
far flung and no one can predict what it will look like
but I know I am bringing my whole heart with me.

jd hegarty (she/they) is a poet, an anarchist, and a sunflower living in Minneapolis, Minnesota with two loud grey cats. jd’s work can be found in Name & None, Crab Orchard Review, Mortar Magazine, 45th Parallel, Inscape and elsewhere. Their first chapbook, On Passing, was published by Red Bird Chapbooks in 2017 and their self-published chapbook of sad gay love poems, the clearest blue, is available for free at jdhegarty.com. They can be found on twitter @YourAuntieJD