Max Kennedy: How to Breathe
Photo: Joanna C. Valente
He’s Come to Get Me
I’m finding beauty in unfortunate ways. He hums to the beat of an old machine ready to collapse. I couldn’t tell you what it looked like. Red? Red was always my least favorite color—
but you knew that.
I’m realizing— now (?)— he wanted nothing to do with me.
(did he x3)
(didn’t he x3)
A stained glass window shattered on the dance floor… there must’ve been blood. How else did I slip. And who on? Maybe the strike of an elbow was the final blow. I know something caught up to me.
(or someone x3)
What did you tell me when you met me? I’d never remember. I felt like you would. Oh, you’re good to me.
My lips hum. My ears ring. They melt into my mind as my vision is taken over. I look up to see the ocean above me. It looks as I imagined it. I reach a pocket of air and for a moment I don’t know how to breathe. You never taught me how to breathe.
(he’s come to get me x3)
Have you come to get me (?)
This poem originally appeared in our ebook The Queer Body.
MAX KENNEDY (he/they) is a recent graduate of San Francisco State University’s Creative Writing program. Emphasizing in poetics and playwriting while they was in school, they had work published in magazines such as As of Late, The Ana, Society of Sound, and Xpress Magazine. They currently work at a PR agency in the beauty industry while writing personally and creatively.
