I am leaving.

Leaving this form, leaving this team,

leaving you hiding her texts, her perfume on your neck

like frost on the glass in the morning, like the ice 

in her veins, both of you insisting the same: it is too much to be married 

to someone like me. 

Omega and rising, even after I tore 

wings of flame from my back so I could 

come back to you. You’re both pretending like fire’s

the issue when it was just you, shielding your eyes

from me, a wild and unyielding sun,

too strong to be a good wife.

Only one of us is apparently allowed to lose control.

You like your telepaths like you like

yourself: flattering, charming, calculating—

in another world we are happy, but in another world, you are not 

freezing up, and she isn’t there to validate your fear that

you will never be stronger than me.



Sarah Salcedo is an author, illustrator, and filmmaker based in the Pacific Northwest. Her prose has been published in The Future Fire, Pacifica Literary Review, Collective Realms, and Hypertext Magazine. Her art has been published in Cascadia Magazine, Hypertext Magazine, and The Future Fire. Her first feature film documentary, Promised Land, won multiple awards. She is currently, as in this very moment, rewatching Marvel’s AGENTS OF SHIELD, hoping it finds its way back into MCU canon. Who is cooler than Melinda May and Daisy Johnson? She’ll die on the hill that Marvel’s best written and acted love story is Fitz/Simmons, and she’ll love Agent Phil Coulson forever. And really, other than maybe Loki, who doesn’t love Coulson? When she’s not watching or reading comic book things, or doing her paid work, you can find her on Twitter @sarahsalcedo and sarah-salcedo.com

This poem is included in our Marvelous Verses anthology. Pick up a copy here!