my dear [ ],

a.c. said that fragments are good things to inhabit, so
i love you?/

i don’t know what this feeling is, because the last time i had a crush,
i wrote songs for someone else in a way of disguising who it was for.
(my first published work is really for you.)
god(s), how I miss your hands peeling oranges for me
and laughing as I scrubbed fragrant pith out from under dirty fingernails.

i miss your decent opinions, like when i send you texts,
But it is so terrible to not know the inflections of your words.
This isn’t iambic pentameter and i don’t which words are stressed.
i want to know what it is like to hold your hand for once,
or try to understand the things that make us different and the same.

(there isn’t a manual for how queer girls should love other girls).
i look for guidance from Sappho, but i cannot find a translation
that tells me what to do in a century where cutting the knot means
placing myself into a system that is founded by the academic who
thinks they can dictate my experience.
this is an unsolvable situation.

i could never kiss you and what does that mean?
how do i turn late night poetry into something that you could read and critique.
How does my prediction being of [ ]

this is impossible in this universe where everything feels absurd.

i say texts are absurd, but they are my only respite.
God(s), i want to create stuff for you and about you and
your story had four characters and i was the foil to her, but it wasn’t about me. how could i mistake you and
i for their coupling?
i overthink, compartmentalize and am getting ahead of myself.

this letter will never be sent. oh my [ ], if i am to remain this way in the morning, i don’t know what i

will do with myself.

Signed,

[ ( ) ]

—–
Dora Levy is a queer, 18 year old poet from the Midwest. She has two cats, a plant named Cornelius, and she enjoys Shakespeare and cooking.