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Cherry Cola
Wings sheared off with scissors
Blood dripping off your crimson feathers.
Legs bound together with infinitely knotted rope
Burns mark your skin, angry and biting.
The wrong air forced through your larynx
Words nothing but razor blades on your tongue.
Drink your Cherry Cola in a steel glass.
Take a sip from your friend’s cup
It burns your throat like battery acid.
Discard every label, throw it in the fire
Watch the edges curl up and turn into orange embers
That glow with shame hot and stifling
That send sweat trickling down your forehead.
Drink your Cherry Cola in a steel glass.
Smash every glass bottle
Hide the shards under the bed
Take them out in the dead of night
Where nothing remains but
A silence that strangles you in your own thoughts
Pray no one asks about the holes in the trash bag.
Drink your Cherry Cola in a steel glass.
Deny, derail, distract
All those who wonder about your cup.
Forget what it is yourself.
Lies affix your limbs to your side with their silvery thread
Let the spider’s web entangle you.
Paint your life in monochrome.
Pour your glass of Cherry Cola out.
Refill it with Water
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I've struggled with accepting my own sexuality my entire life. It's the only part of my identity I could hide, and the only part I actively continued to obscure. Even times when I was open with others about it, I still felt apprehension and a deep hatred toward my choice to express myself. As I've grown, I've decided to open myself up more. This poem is a reflection of my past and continued fight against my own shame.