perhappened mag
issue 14: HIDE & SEEK
avril lavigne's
complicated
plays at afropunk atlanta
TYQUAN D. MORTON
& you hold my hands & kiss them for the first time without conviction.
Is my hand supposed to cover yours or vice versa?
I hold your breath while you stand in line
ordering us the blackest chicken & waffles I’ve ever tasted.
You come back & it’s hidden & you can’t find it
& maybe you forgot to ask because you know I’ll keep it safe.
This is radically beautiful & alternative,
we sing together & love with an echo & a silence:
You become somebody else / ‘round everyone else /
watching your back like you can’t relax /
You’re trying to be cool/you look like a fool to me.
I used to sing this song like a sin at the bus stop on the iPod I stole
& hid it in the closet among other things. I kept the volume low &
when someone looked my way, I turned blacker and bluer &
hid my shadow under the moon:
This is the case for everyone here: radically beautiful & alternative.
We continue singing & loving our black & blue bodies under the moon,
Is my hand supposed to cover yours or vice versa?
This is what love feels like & to love & to be loved.
Is my hand supposed to cover yours or vice versa?
I hold your breath while you stand in line
ordering us the blackest chicken & waffles I’ve ever tasted.
You come back & it’s hidden & you can’t find it
& maybe you forgot to ask because you know I’ll keep it safe.
This is radically beautiful & alternative,
we sing together & love with an echo & a silence:
You become somebody else / ‘round everyone else /
watching your back like you can’t relax /
You’re trying to be cool/you look like a fool to me.
I used to sing this song like a sin at the bus stop on the iPod I stole
& hid it in the closet among other things. I kept the volume low &
when someone looked my way, I turned blacker and bluer &
hid my shadow under the moon:
This is the case for everyone here: radically beautiful & alternative.
We continue singing & loving our black & blue bodies under the moon,
Is my hand supposed to cover yours or vice versa?
This is what love feels like & to love & to be loved.
Tyquan D. Morton is a Master’s of Education candidate at Vanderbilt University. His work has been published in Wussy Mag, Good Juju Review: An Anthology, Fresh Ink Anthology, and a self-published chapbook, Remembering Pluto. His work romanticizes the intermingling of queer desire and domesticity.