I stood in an orchard, no cool mom in sight,
with a cider cooling my hand:
‘He’s gayer than the last one,’
said a Madison, not a Regina.
My boyfriend squeezed my waist
as I chugged down my silence,
coating my tongue too gay to function,
my heart a flat line, my eyes unresponsive.
An impulse sent to phantom lips:
‘Thank you.’

Ryan Norman is a writer from New York living in the Hudson Valley. Inspired by the landscape, he writes what he feels. His work has appeared in From Whispers to Roars, Vamp Cat Magazine, Black Bough Poetry, Storgy Magazine, XRAY Literary Magazine, and elsewhere. You can find him on Twitter @RyanMGNorman.