Elisa Díaz Castelo

am doing my best to not become a museum

of myself. I am doing my best to breathe in and out.

I am begging: Let me be lonely but not invisible.

I am less than myself. Only a fraction

of a body, let’s say, I am only a hand—

and when I slip it beneath the shirt of my lover

I disappear completely.

But it’s hard, isn’t it? Not to perform

what they say about our sadness, when we are

always so sad.