heart sings to changeling heart

by Rasha Abdulhadi ​

beloved,
please become
beloved.
i've been
chasing your silhouette,
but just missing
you, with a busted ankle
in a doorway of rain,
alone, I sang into
the tucked sheets
of a starless night, sang you
a blanket then and would again

—and you,
always moved
before i could love you
for what you just finished
for what you just are: that slippery
fish trying to find itself in a card catalogue,
between hangers on a rack, trying to plant itself
in chapter after chapter of an invented life, love, how
you change form to become yourself,
how your costumes hide the molting
beneath, a covet of jackets and hats—
i always suspected you would be
exactly who you are, and yet,
how you get there surprises me. You are
so difficult, so stubbornly
unsolved and more fascinating for it.

For all your genius joy river
slipping under sticky fascia tension
and sliding out of skin,
i don't believe it will get easier
but i believe you will
get out of your own way.

You survived—
long enough to not make their mistakes
you will make your own.

Rasha Abdulhadi is a queer Palestinian Southerner living with Long Covid disability. Rasha's writing has appeared in Poem-a-Day, Kweli, Heartlines, Anathema, FIYAH, Strange Horizons, carte blanche, ROOM, and Mizna. Their work is anthologized in Essential Voices: A COVID-19 Anthology (forthcoming), Snaring New Suns, Halal if You Hear Me, and Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia Butler. Their Elgin Award-nominated chapbook is who is owed springtime (Neon Hemlock, 2021).