(b)oth and ne(i)ther | poem
i have always wanted girls like her.
the ones who seem born from lullabies,
spun sugar and skywater,
walking like they’ve never stubbed a toe
or swallowed their voice.
girls who lean into the sun
like it was made for them,
whose laughter slips under doorways
and curls in the corners of rooms
long after they’ve gone.
and it’s always girls like her —
freckled and golden,
with daisy chains tangled in their hair,
their lips stained the color
of quiet things.
soft things.
things i was never taught to be.
i have wanted them like spring,
like warmth cracking through frostbitten bones,
like the first bloom after a long sleep.
and yet —
i have also wanted the boys
who wanted them.
boys with knuckles bruised
from punching drywalls,
who wear silence like an armor,
black like a habit.
who never need to raise their voices
to be heard.
boys who carried storms in their chests
and let me shelter there.
in their arms, i was smaller.
something precious.
something worth shielding.
they held me against their ribs
like a secret they didn’t know how to tell
yet.
but sometimes,
i hated the boys, too.
not just for how they looked at her
like she was a prayer they never had to earn —
but for how the world kept answering them anyway.
i wanted what they had.
not to be a boy
trapped inside a girl,
but to carry what boyhood comes with:
unquestioned gravity.
elbows and fists in every room.
the language of silence
spoken fluently and without consequence.
they could speak bluntly
and be called bold.
they could smirk
and be called charming.
they could walk like the world belonged to them
and the world agreed.
when they were confident,
they were cocky —
when i was, i was arrogant.
when they were angry, they were cool —
when i was, i was a bitch.
they could break things —
walls, hearts, rules —
and still be held together
by soft hands and softer eyes.
they could bleed on the floor
and no one would call it weakness.
they could howl
and still be called sons.
i was like them —
i had fists made of rust and splinters.
rage blooming under my fingernails.
but i learned to tuck my wild
behind bitten lips.
to lace my fury with apology.
to make grief look delicate,
as if pain only matters
when it’s palatable.
i wanted to be the kind of storm
that didn’t need to say sorry
when it touched down.
and maybe that’s why i wanted them —
not just their arms,
but the ease inside them.
the way the world made room
for their anger and called it gravity.
the way they could stay whole
even after breaking something.
how softness was given to them
not as a reward,
but as a birthright.
i thought if i stood close enough,
i could borrow it —
that calm certainty,
that untouchable kind of power.
i thought if they held me tight enough,
i’d soak some of it in.
that i could bleed beside them
and not be told to clean it up.
that i could hurt,
and be held anyway.
with boys, i am allowed to be light.
i can fold myself into something fragile,
tuck my teeth behind my smile,
and never ask where i left the bite.
they do not look for the broken pieces
because they do not need to.
i am soft in the safety of their shadow.
but with her —
god, with her,
i have no shadow to hide in.
i am the shadow.
i am the thing she leans into
when her knees are scraped
and her voice is shaking.
i am the hands that tie her shoelaces
and wipe the honey from her lips.
i am the one who stands between her
and the teeth of the world
while she gathers wildflowers from its mouth.
and i love her for it.
but i ache to be the one she sings about.
the girl with flower-petal wrists
who gets carried home
when her feet are too tired to dance.
i wanted her,
even as i wanted to spit her name
into the dirt.
because the boys i’d mapped my future onto
looked at her like she was the finish line.
and she always reached for them.
i understood why.
i did.
i would’ve chosen them too.
tall boys with thoughtful eyes
who let you feel delicate on purpose.
the ones who hold her melting cone
while she ties her shoe,
who text goodnight with vodka still on their tongues,
who save her a place on their shoulders
in movie theatres and moving cars,
who buy her tulips at sunday markets
while i watch from the other side of the
glass,
my palms flat against the window.
and the cruelest part was —
i didn’t know
if i wanted to be the girl in his arms,
or if i wanted to be the one
he was holding her back from.
there is a quiet kind of carnage
in being everyone’s nearly.
in being the chalk outline of someone’s maybe.
there is a ruin in knowing that both of them,
the boy with the dark eyes
and the girl with the sun in her hair —
would choose each other,
while you hold the space in between.
i kissed her once behind a laundromat,
our mouths tasting of static and citrus soda.
she laughed afterwards,
touched my cheek like i was a mirror
she wasn’t sure she liked her reflection in.
she walked away with someone else’s
hoodie while i stayed behind,
eating the warmth of her fingerprints
off my neck.
he never looked at me that way.
with him, there were no mirrors.
only his jacket draped over my shoulders,
only his breath in my ear, telling me i was safe.
i could be soft in the dark with him.
i could be just a girl.
but with her,
i am the lock and the key.
i am always holding the weight of both our hearts.
and she looks at me like i’m a map
when i just want to be the road.
i think i wanted to be her.
the kind of girl who floats when she laughs,
who dances barefoot on concrete,
who leans into him
like she’s never been afraid to fall.
but i also wanted her hands in mine.
i wanted to braid her hair,
and kiss the freckle beneath her eye,
hold her when she cried,
even if her tears
were never for me.
they look better together,
her and him.
she the soft bloom,
he the strong hand beneath her stem.
and me,
the dirt they root themselves in,
holding them both up
while they never look down.
and i love them.
i love them both.
that’s the cruelest thing.
how i am full of love
and nowhere to put it
except into the cracks
they leave behind.
if i were him,
i’d hold her too.
if i were her,
i’d kiss him just the same.
but i’m neither.
and they will always
love each other
more than they ever look at me.