Dianna Morales is a 24-year-old LGBTQ+ Mexican-American writer currently working for a non-profit that focuses on inspiring social change and creativity in young people. She’s self-published one novel and one poetry collection, and has been featured in several online magazines. Dianna’s dream is to help the world in any way that she can. Oh, and she’s also very fond of cats.
11032022
I want to be embraced by my father,
he will hold me with a nice camera
that I will later say I lost
after having buried it deep in the sky.
his teeth aren’t clean, they are crooked,
I write my name over and over again
in my worn-out tree guide,
I will tell him that I do not like hugs.
my hands leave burning prints,
he says I make him feel sad,
there are roaches on the ceiling,
I do not like to look at them.
his favorite name for me is a child’s one,
I will take a photo of the moment,
he won’t come to my graduation,
like a lonely and mean mountain standing all alone.
sometimes, I embrace my father,
his body doesn’t fit against mine,
the TV is still on,
and I cannot sleep, I cannot sleep.
05222020
Previously published elsewhere
when everything is said and done, i won’t look for you anymore.
i’m taller than you now, a growing apple tree that is wide and overbearing and maybe
something like you when you were younger, just a seed planted in the ground.
i know you remember me when i was the “you” in the “you seemed happier back then”
but i’m the “you” in the “you’ll be okay” now, one day, i have to be.
when everything is said and done, i’ll probably convince myself that i’ve lost you.
i’ll listen to your voicemails, static sounds and distant laughs, and my leaves will wilt,
they will die, i’ll wish i was planted back in the ground, i’ll wish i was the “you” of back then,
more than ever, i won’t be okay, even though one day, i have to be.
when everything is said and done, you won’t be here anymore.
i’ll visit you where i’ve kept you and i’ll start to sprout vines that need to be cut off and they’ll
wrap around you, tightly and harshly, and they’ll make me bleed and cry, and “how can you be
happy again?” you’ll say to me, and i won’t know the answer, but one day, i have to be.
when everything is said and done, i won’t look for you anymore.
that might mean i’ve hacked off my own branches and let the apples rot on the ground, sinking
into the soil to be consumed by the earth, there won’t be a “you” anymore. there won’t be me.
hopefully, i’ll live again, tall and all-encompassing because i’ll be okay. one day. i have to be.
The Field Guide Poetry Magazine 