My Therapist Asks If I Would Be Happier If I Were Straight
- My Therapist Asks If I Would Be Happier If I Were Straight
Shelley Wong, poetry
Set the dove free and tryto call it back within a year.How do you love a bird so muchyou cage it? If I were that birdI'd sing all day. With the right song,I'll dance my bones down. He looksand I can't look or she touchesmy arm and I stay still. I heartoo many songs that remind meof people I once loved or wantedto love, but stayed silent. I have treesin my mind, but rivers, too. I'm tryingto live in a world that gives metwo Xs for my eyes. I use a trapdoorwhen I erase my feeling. When I take cover,I forgive myself. These days, I'm busystitching my breath. Desirebecomes a distant edge. What songwill draw me to someone so closethat I'll speak? As a girl, I never sawa woman who looked like me.I had to invent her. I'm inventing her. [End Page 653]
shelley wong is the author of the chapbook Rare Birds. Her poems have appeared in Crazyhorse, Kenyon Review Online, Sycamore Review, and Verse Daily. She is the recipient of a 2017 Pushcart Prize and fellowships and support from Kundiman, MacDowell Colony, Kenyon Review Writers Workshop, Fine Arts Work Center, I-Park Foundation, Fire Island National Seashore, and SPACE.
