Frond is an online literary journal dedicated to publishing prose and prose poems from writers who identify as part of the LGBTQI2SA community.

Then | by Kamila Rina

The night is newly washed around me. Dark green leaves glisten and wink as I pass by. Crossing a bridge over quiet velvet water, I think of you. There once was mystery and promise and velvet newness between us like in that river, perpetually replacing itself. There was that first night when your eyes shone mutedly, waiting pools of after-midnight minty dark, and you held me like the strong stem of a calla lily, curled against your breastbone. The sharp green juice of the lily burst on your lips like peppercorns, and you couldn’t get enough, you searched my mouth like a cave, and I opened wide, a river flowing into the sea, your tongue wrapped around my teeth — and, thin veils of cloth removed, our plump nipples met and blushed. My eyes gasped out loud. You took me to your bed, wide and white-capped, where I lay curled into the palm of the pillow, and my knees fell open like flowers. You kissed my thighs, drinking to the bottom where the liquid’s cool and strong, and I was live, voltage crackling each vessel, my red iron ionized. My fingers were waves on the pillows, my body opened into a book, of poems maybe, the blue current shook me from the inside, it had never been like this, I didn’t know what to do with its thrum in my fingerpads, but I wasn’t scared, I trusted you and let go — easy after all, like pushing a canoe off a pier — and the white sheets brought me through the storm, your tongue beat hummingbird wings against me, and I tipped over out of the kinetic stillness, the volts steamed off me into the air like dew becoming mist, and my humming hands settled against your back, my throat still wide open from your name. And there was so much more to this morning which had come when we weren’t looking, but we weren’t surprised, we’d made our own sun and hung it on the wall — there was so much more, like my slim knuckles drenched inside you, my mouth flirting with the smooth cherry of your nipple, your pupils sweetly open, your back arching, your hipbones trusting me as your body sighed champagne, and then later the light lovewords, each a sugarcube, and oh god I loved you so much you had become another chamber in my heart. And I won’t look past that day, to the ruin and loss and nettle sting, the dribbled drawn-out ending like a terminal condition; all this happened two years ago, and still, today, as I cross a bridge after a rain and look into the water, I see your trusting waiting eyes, I see my knees falling open, I see the sunlight, I hear you tell me you love me, your heart on the tip of your perfect tongue.

Kamila Rina is a multi-disabled immigrant Jewish non-binary bi poet, a sexuality/gender/disability/life skills educator, and a survivor of long-term violence. They enjoy talking about being present in one’s body and fomenting the revolution. Kamila has previously been published in Room Magazine, Breath & Shadow, Sinister Wisdom, Monstering, Deaf Poets Society, We Have Come Far, True Confessions of a Big Geek, Queer Out Here, and Augur; has performed their work at Proud Voices, Bi Arts Festival, Too Queer Cabaret, Mad Pride, Resistance Culture Cabaret, Biphoria, Exchanging Notes, Frankly Bob Arts Awards, and Naked Heart; and has produced a chapbook titled Multitasking with Feelings. Find them at KamilaRina.com.

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