glitter song
by Kush Thompson
touch me, & i am everywhere,
everywhere. diamond darkling,
drink up all the light. greedy &
giggle-skinned in girlhood’s glitra.
opposite of invisible: see me
sun stuck under eyelid.
sun see me, & see herself –
stargirls sandcastled in exploded
sugar. princess made of microplastic
prism. disco drip in my bathtub.
my brilliant belly button ensorcelled by
fairy dance. starplay like school children on
blacktop. sound of bubble gum lipgloss &
berry crush. claire’s confetti crusted
crystalline dream in the corners of my
waking. mermaid scale kaleidoscoped.
glister-water birthed into venus
pearlescent. pestle ground goldstone made
a daughter of stubborn vanish. i leave, &
linger at the lip. pinky knuckle kissed gel
pen metallic, & sprinkled like wish in the
letters to my love: touch me, touch me,
wherever you are.
everywhere. diamond darkling,
drink up all the light. greedy &
giggle-skinned in girlhood’s glitra.
opposite of invisible: see me
sun stuck under eyelid.
sun see me, & see herself –
stargirls sandcastled in exploded
sugar. princess made of microplastic
prism. disco drip in my bathtub.
my brilliant belly button ensorcelled by
fairy dance. starplay like school children on
blacktop. sound of bubble gum lipgloss &
berry crush. claire’s confetti crusted
crystalline dream in the corners of my
waking. mermaid scale kaleidoscoped.
glister-water birthed into venus
pearlescent. pestle ground goldstone made
a daughter of stubborn vanish. i leave, &
linger at the lip. pinky knuckle kissed gel
pen metallic, & sprinkled like wish in the
letters to my love: touch me, touch me,
wherever you are.
Author of A Church Beneath the Bulldozer (2014) and creator of the pink-haired Blk Hottie portraiture series, Kush Thompson is a Chicago-born poet, painter, educator, and fellow of Luminarts, Pink Door, and Cave Canem. She creates archival art; centering often on black girlhood and the mechanics of memory. Her work has appeared in Poetry Magazine, Chicago Reader, The Washington Post, and The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop (2015).