CW: Suicidal Ideation, Abuse
and I wonder if I did cheat. If this
was all a test, that I was supposed to refuse
the man he told to touch me. Like all dancers,
I worship my choreographer. I revere
the director of this pornography.
Jeff didn’t want to call me his boyfriend,
told me how everyone he ever dated cheated.
The truth is, I cheated on R a long time ago.
I’m not innocent in all of this. Or maybe,
I am innocent in this one place, here, in Chicago,
talking to a friend in Florida when he calls
and tells me I should go kill myself, when
I’m used to doing what he tells me to do.
Teo Mungaray is a queer, chronically ill, latinx poet. He holds an MFA from Pacific University of Oregon and is pursuing his doctorate at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He is a co-founder and co-EIC of Cotton Xenomorph. His poems have recently appeared in or are forthcoming from Sycamore Review, Five:2:One Magazine, Drunk Monkeys, Birdfeast, Cosmonauts Avenue andGlass: A Journal of Poetry. He has a cat named Lysistrata.