What’s Left

Maybe I should stop
writing about glitter—
but sometimes I wonder

if it’s the only proof
still clinging to what’s left
of us. Do you miss

the sparkle of my eye
shadow? Golden branded
butterfly kisses fluttered

onto your gilded cheeks.
I guess I just like shiny things
that stay. Like a shimmery

permanence, or a luster
memento of everything
I’ve loved enough to touch.

Another Period Poem

Fucking someone should be easy,
but I’m on my period
on a first date, and I want

to negotiate a scene—
but not that one from The Shining.
So anyway, a man walks into a bar

and I’m bleeding. He says I’m happy
you decided to meet, and my smile
lacks sparkle because I’m just here

for the ride, and one of us knows
that’s not going to happen.
I order something fruity with a tiny

umbrella. My cherry red lipstick ghosts
into the soft red bar-light glow.
I’m on his lap when I say we’re not

having sex. He puts his hands up—
a surrender, says I’d just like to kiss you,
and we do until I’m kissing

him with my eyes open: bored and waiting
for the punchline. An older man
walks into a bar, and I’m still bleeding.

He says I don’t drink but looks thirsty.
I savor the thought of being a novelty,
but he looks everywhere but me

and his fingers fidget, never reach
for mine. He walks me home
and doesn’t invite himself in.

A woman walks into a coffee shop,
it’s a week and a half later and I’m still
bleeding. I’m cursing the bloated

baggage of the breakup that brought
this all on. She says I’d like to kiss you,
and we do and she leaves. I want to feel

something, will myself to exchange
numbness for lust. I’m empty and aching
to be filled by something like soft

hands. The boy made of sand
let himself be swallowed
by a gentler sea. I wish

instead of blood I could bury
him under the rough
sheets of some unknown

bed. I don’t want to write
another poem about this boy
or my period,

but I guess I’ll opt for the latter
because it’s the one that always comes
back.

Tyler Hurula (she/her) is a poet born and raised in Denver, Colorado. She is queer, polyamorous, and lives with her wife and two cats. Author of Love Me Louder (Querencia Press). Her poems have been published previously in Anti-Heroin Chic, Aurum Journal, Quail Bell Magazine, Gnashing Teeth Publishing, and more. She values connection, authenticity, and vulnerability, and tries to encompass these values in her writing as well as everyday life.