Please Don't Tell Me

Please don’t tell me.

I remember your sweet hesitant smile
a holding back of words in your heart 
and mind
You would often just blurt out the truth
of your feelings
I remember how you
captured everyone's attention at public events 
with a warm, appealing

sincere voice 

I can’t remember much about
our few dates. 

I was too conflicted. 

I remember the night we first tumbled 
in each other’s arms on 

the extra futon in someone’s

apartment on the East Side 
after a big fundraising party for 

gay social justice 
we drank wine 
talked and talked more 
and then I looked at the clock

it was too late 

to drive back to Brooklyn
or take the subway

Such a convenient excuse 

There you were perky, 

the bright eyed 

Catholic boarding school rebel

now a spokesperson for lesbian rights 

I couldn’t stop 

Didn't stop 

Yeah we kissed

Me first? You?

Each of us saying

"Is this okay?" 
and your OK was 

more confident than mine
because I had a feeling 

that you'd become one more 

Hello and Goodbye 

in the usual dyke drama stories 

linked to my drunken 

forgetting to say 

"oh by the way..."
when I said it was OK 

that we kiss 

I meant 

with me
not with her

you know 

the one who’s been playing house with me for two years 

I remember our passionate tussle
and how we whispered

And giggled as I compared 

this huge Manhattan apartment 

to my cubby hole in Brooklyn  

And how I gently touched those soft lips 

That could speak truth to power 
or sometimes just tremble in anger
as we all fighters for justice 

For dignity to our queer lives 

Observed the ongoing patterns of 

A world leveling hate in our direction 

And even blaming natural disasters

To the existence of openly gay living

And now as I remember you

And the brief moments of US

I do regret that we lost touch

That the years went by 

That you found love and marriage and had kids 

And then vanished only to surface 

In this odd notice in a magazine I rarely pick up

Where it mentioned you 

And your final illness and 

our community’s loss of 

A fearless voice for justice.

And the writer should have mentioned

That you had a beautiful smile and 

Really soft lips.  

Elvia (Sudasini) Arriola 

@Edited (2019)