By Aaliyah Anderson
i.
They don’t understand that we swallow our peppermints whole. Or
how she dyes her hair a neon color just to buy
a gift for her best friend.
I keep asking for recommendations, so
I can stick them on my face.
Coffee tastes
like reading diagrams. No joy.
ii.
Does her whole-outfit covey
I hate Allen Ginsberg’s voice? For, he trades cloudless-skies
for me; if you put a song on loop, I hate it less.
Don’t shake my hand, please,
let’s make this less formal and more desperate.
iii.
Today, I want to use a different ideology:
pay for a stranger’s lunch. Stress all your syllables
like the woman you are. Don’t wait
more than three seconds
for the next person to get the door.
Close your eyes against the chilly sun,
then wish for it to snow.
Aaliyah Anderson (she/her) is a junior majoring in Literary Arts at her high school in Petersburg, VA. Her work is forthcoming in Sour Cherry Mag and miniMag. She’s obsessed with storytelling.
Hot Pot Magazine 