Tom Sepulveda
Every day a gift
The weight gathering all summer, the pool parties, the late night
driving, a year away from heading out like dandelion seeds.
What was I supposed to know as we quietly fumbled
with our bodies? Our ruin impending every time the floor creaked.
I made my escape after another boy slipped in
through the window, sure that he could be the man you wanted.
It was a season of updrafts, and I could spend mornings transfixed
by cumulus rising before my eyes, like the heat from the night before.
You always mistook a lack of assertiveness for a timid nature, as if
I were a chipmunk on a fence waiting for scraps to drop.
The laundry room had a French door from the bathroom, a little space I could hide
in and repeatedly test my weight hanging from the ceiling beam.
How could I be sure what I wanted? What bodies I wanted? I couldn’t
even tell you if I knew what a man was or how to own the room.
When I was outside, thunder always made me flinch, even afternoons
when I was lying in the open and watching the wall clouds begin to swirl.
The weight was a gift I couldn’t understand. The summer rolled on, and we never
solved each other. In that August heat, I found new ways to keep myself locked up.
To be honest, when I gave up on the laundry room and began planning
how far I could get away from here, it was a trivial thing to most.
Sometimes, the storms that blew through would leave great swathes wrecked in its wake.
I got out of town without fanfare and no one was the wiser.
driving, a year away from heading out like dandelion seeds.
What was I supposed to know as we quietly fumbled
with our bodies? Our ruin impending every time the floor creaked.
I made my escape after another boy slipped in
through the window, sure that he could be the man you wanted.
It was a season of updrafts, and I could spend mornings transfixed
by cumulus rising before my eyes, like the heat from the night before.
You always mistook a lack of assertiveness for a timid nature, as if
I were a chipmunk on a fence waiting for scraps to drop.
The laundry room had a French door from the bathroom, a little space I could hide
in and repeatedly test my weight hanging from the ceiling beam.
How could I be sure what I wanted? What bodies I wanted? I couldn’t
even tell you if I knew what a man was or how to own the room.
When I was outside, thunder always made me flinch, even afternoons
when I was lying in the open and watching the wall clouds begin to swirl.
The weight was a gift I couldn’t understand. The summer rolled on, and we never
solved each other. In that August heat, I found new ways to keep myself locked up.
To be honest, when I gave up on the laundry room and began planning
how far I could get away from here, it was a trivial thing to most.
Sometimes, the storms that blew through would leave great swathes wrecked in its wake.
I got out of town without fanfare and no one was the wiser.
Biography
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Tom Sepulveda is a nonbinary Chilean-American poet. Their work has appeared in the San Joaquin Review and Santa Clara Review, and more recently Wild Roof Journal. They hold an MFA from Fresno State. They currently work at a newspaper in California, and after decades in journalism are finally getting around to finishing that first book of poems.
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