RED RIOT! <3

By: Roukia Ali

I don’t know what you’re talking about, I just stare at your mouth.

The curls gravitating around your lips tease intimate entrance into

Your conversation—I want to find where your words form,

How they’re laced around your tongue. You could ensnare cherry knots

Around me with your wit, how easily words come to you...tell me

“I love you” like it’s a conspiracy, a scandalous passing sigh into my

Collarbone—carve out how much I want you like it’s your name

Into my bedpost.

Isn’t that how the lyric goes?

I want you more than just a best friend?

I won’t pretend to understand, I’m just touching your hands.

Every lithe finger, chipped nail polish, filling the gaps between

My own—this is where I’m gaping, this is where I need you to stay.

You squeeze once, twice, three times, please just get the courage

To lift it. Turn my palm up like it’s something you need to observe in

Order to fix, pepper kisses along it, stab your teeth and scrape along the

Lines like you’re untying cowardice. Don’t be a polite stranger, honey.

Isn’t that how history goes?

Never lovers, just the ones suspiciously there for each other when it falls apart?

I won’t claim I know why Renaissance geniuses carved men out of marble,

But I swear I think I’ve felt the reincarnated flash of their marvel, the desperation

To have something beautiful pop out, staring at your skin dimpling in the sunshine

Until your freckles turn russet brown. I just can’t explain it. The walls of your bedroom

Where you get on with your life is my planet. I want to recycle your frustrations,

And trace over the skin jumping with your heartbeats like I’m following constellations.

Isn’t that how the beauty of the universe goes?

Everything sings, and your lingering harmony calls my brain your home.

I won’t pretend you’re not someone to miss, I want to be your last kiss.

Grappling, sliding hands behind the stairwell. Hooked pinky, Aphrodite

Darting her love bullet in grazing across my cheek changing lines on the

Subway. In the rain, hair mopping my shoulders, lover’s spit dripping away.

In the meeting of two breaths, find your reflection in my eyes and confess

Before your eyelashes fan out in closing, and we do what we do best.

Tell me something I won’t know unless it is passed along in the hymn

Of the hum of satisfaction leaving your lipsticked mouth. I see now that

Religion is red like this. I know now why the steadfast followers go to

Worship, and when they come back enlightened, can’t keep it a secret.

Crazy, isn’t it?

I want everyone to gather around my heart and warm their hands over the fire you lit in it.

Roukia Ali is a 19-year-old published writer and Assistant Editor-In-Chief of The Infinite Blues Review. When not writing she can be found religiously listening to Chappell Roan's "The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess", re-reading Sylvia Plath's unabridged journals, or explaining to people why purple is the best color, period. Interact with her on Instagram @roukiaa9140

“My interpretation of this theme rests in the queer joy of having your awakened realization, or your first queer crush. I took a lot of inspiration from one of the singles on Chappell Roan's "The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess", which is "Red Wine Supernova". It's my favorite track off the album because it's unapologetically about love in its catchiness, and I wanted to emulate its kind of scandalous, exuberant energy in my free verse. After having had my first female crush on a girl in one of my English classes (who also happened to be a redhead), I honestly felt that I had tapped into such a visceral part of my bisexuality. In flipping historical and religious images on their heads in the common tradition of queer writing, I wanted to break the stigma behind such a love. It's not a performative thing to be a woman in love with another woman, but, in how beautiful and exciting the love is, there's a movie-like quality to it I hoped to encapsulate. I wanted the entire poem to read as a process of falling in love, as a hope of what could be.” —Roukia Ali

This piece was previously published by Glass Bead Magazine for their 24hr queer spotlight.