PRIDE ISSUE: Human Feeling

By Jayla Jones

Human Feeling

by fourth year Zoey Stephens

You never hugged your best friend, too raw, too real

To say ‘I love you’ to another girl.

What if they thought… would they know?

No, this one’s different, but still it’s too close.

If you hide it away it'll dwindle and fade,

And you can separate from the idea of denigrating yourself to the humanity of touching someone else.

Of loving or being in love with girls or boys or existent beings,

Searching for that real live human feeling.

But it won’t go away, and the first time you have a crush on a girl

She’s older and you think she’s just so cool,

And she sees you and she’s nice to you 

And you never tell her you like her before she goes off to school.

But you see her four years later and you’ve both got boyfriends, 

It’s silly but you let yourself wonder what would have been

If you could have been vulnerable enough 

To chase that living human feeling.

Then the first girl you kiss is at a party

In front of boys you want to hold hands with.

And you feel so guilty when her lips leave yours,

What a great kiss, oh my god, ‘we’re just friends’

Don’t you want attention?

You never think about why you kissed the same boy your friend did,

Or why you kissed a boy just because she said you should do it.

What did you have to prove? 

And why did she tell you to kiss him if she liked him too?

And then you finally kiss a girl and hide from the world,

When other eyes on the dancefloor burn into yours.

You lead her to the bathroom door, 

But you held her hand and sat in her lap in front of her friends

And you felt like a human.

Mmm don’t you want to feel so raw and so real?

In small wrists straight arms sea-shelled glimmers,

Rosehips, crooked teeth like pomegranate seeds,

Smudged eyeliner bathroom mirrors ink stained fingertips

Smiling green eyed girls and boys and 

Soft skinned humans with love to give.

What if you grabbed your best friend’s hand and said ‘I love you’ again,

And didn't worry about the mess of touching someone else?

You could love her now without worrying about 

Other people thinking what it might mean,

Thinking of your humanity,

Who cares if they know that you feel that real live human feeling.