Content warnings: Reference to childhood bullying.

They could only breathe at night.
They lived like a cactus
their childhood years,
thickened spiked skin
sealed against the savage
desert sun, the ravages
of others’ cruelties and rage.

After sleeping through dead dry years,
they never expected their life to open up
like a five-petaled flower spreading
golden heart lobes traced with crimson veins,
part of a field of glory fed by rain.

About the author

Davi Gray (they/she) is a queer, trans, nonbinary poet, writer, storyteller, artist, activist, and abolitionist. They live in Minneapolis (Bde Óta Othúŋwe), on the unceded traditional homelands of the Dakota and Ojibwe.

Davi has work published or forthcoming in Poetry, Rogue Agent, NonBinary Review, and elsewhere; received Honorable Mention in the 2023 Muriel Craft Bailey Poetry contest; has won several prizes in PEN America Prison Writing Contests, and was nominated for an AWP Intro prize. They can often be found performing their poetry at open mics around the Twin Cities.

Photo by Daniel Tuttle on Unsplash.