i find myself queer in space

i have extracted myself from the sweet

terrors of this planet. the one that lies

about the soft landing of home. out here, the air is thick

as a horse. the sting is willing, and i’m selfish.

i offer my own absence. a black hole, no modern ability

to calculate what goes on in there, which is

i rage as much as i love. the way a lion craves the damp

of a gazelle. i am always gentle in the aftermath, a light

lick on the body of the one i choose. yet another hole, dark

as obsidian and even more precious. a calculation

in tongues. there is no possession, only an envoy

signaling the bone-chill of expanding. no flat note

of gravity, only an original instrument to fine tune

and it’s me, me, the glowing timbre of me.

About the Author
Ami Patel (she/her) is a queer, diasporic South Asian poet and Young Adult Fiction writer. Her work can be found in the Unchaste Anthology Volume Two, the Madwoman Etc Zine Issue Two, and They Rise Like A Wave: An Anthology of Asian American Women Poets.