a girl walks into her mother’s closet & says she’s bisexual & the mother hands her a shirt to fold & says you won’t feel that way in ten years & the girl walks into her boyfriend’s arms & says she likes girls & the boy laughs & hands her his cock & the girl starts dating a woman & when her father asks if she’s found a boy at college she gives him the woman’s name & he repeats her name, Britta Britta Britta three times & looks around like she’ll parade out of a mirror, Birkenstocks first, preaching the good word of the Indigo Girls, before demanding she not tell her sisters & the girl comes out as polyamorous & her mother fumes an angry message to the girl’s now wife—something about cheating & the girl tells her best friend she’s dating two people & they’re all happy & enamored & everyone who has only ever committed to one person at a time collectively chimes in & says I could never do that while 51% of them file for divorce & the best friend asks about jealousy while loving both her daughters & then ghosts the girl & the girl tells her queer friend she’s dating someone whose pronouns are they & them & the queer friend laughs & says thank God, I was beginning to think you were straight & some dude on a dating app tells the girl he’s fantasizing about her & his wife & the girl is fucking tired of coming out & explaining she’s not here to perform & shrugs off her validation butch & snaps six promise rings from her fingers & bites her tongue clean through & braces herself for the punchline but there is none & she bludgeons her feet against the floor & she shrieks herself hollow &. last anyone’s heard she’s still slamming her fists against an echoing closet door
Tyler Hurula(she/they) is the pinkest poet and explorer based in Denver, Colorado. She strives to be the most queer and polyamorous person they can be and much of her poetry reflects these themes. Author of the chapbook Love Me Louder (Querencia Press), their poems can be found in Anti-Heroin Chic, South Broadway Press, Gnashing Teeth Publishing, and more. They have been nominated for Best of the Net and Pushcart Prizes, and is a finalist for the Write Bloody 2024 Jack McCarthy Book Prize Contest. She is the assistant editor and events coordinator with Beyond the Veil Press. You can find her on Instagram @theprettypinkpoet or on the web: www.tylerhurula.com.
