on the day i learn anne frank was bisexual

the dean calls to say they’ve gone with a different candidate—the glimmer of light that makes this a hall instead of a room dims to a vague gray—two doctors’ offices confirm appointments for next week—fridays are just mondays with relief promised at the close of business, the same restlessness, its own moorings—my lunch tastes like ash mixed with sugar and synthetic cherry flavoring—scroll through the rest of the break, steady stream of nothing until—i’ve always felt kinship with her, teenage journaler and memoirist, lost to an evil that has become caricatured with time—i see a photo of the passage in question, erotic fascination for another woman, uninhibited and so recognizable—she says she cries when she looks at the female form and i feel the water in me rising up, too—perhaps if i had read this version in the fourth grade i would have realized sooner—but then, if she had lived, who knows who we all could have been—am i allowed to mourn her differently now, as sister or close cousin, not a murdered stranger from another era—earlier, my feed sang, “love is love is love is love” in vibrant unison, reminded of another tragedy, another loss—is this not like that, reclamation and a tight embrace—is this not a welcome home—is this not an apology—

Alexandra Corinth (she/they) is a disabled writer and artist based in DFW. Her chaplet Deus Ex Diagnosi was published by Damaged Goods Press in 2019. Their poem “Language Barriers,” published by Kissing Dynamite, was a Best of the Net 2019 finalist. Alexandra’s work has also appeared or is forthcoming in Saint Katherine Review, Construction, Barren Magazine, Entropy, and SWWIM, among others. You can find her online as @mermaidshewrote or at mermaidshewrote.com.