What I might know if I let myself
Golden shovel after Sumitra Singam’s “How the Netflix Show ‘Heartstopper’ Made Me Cry in the Shower, aged 46”
I knew there were parts to a Self but not that some parts might be river and if I
let myself flow I would lust after things like mangroves and girls don’t
run themselves out, drag over sand flats, show the sunset colours on their face, you know
better. I should contain bream, oyster beds, sea lice and reflections of magpie song and stay quiet. If
the mangroves wanted love they would reach out but they, too, are made of parts: roots, leaves, pneumatophor
—and I
suppose that’s from the complexity of holding together a landscape that’s more water than anything else. Will
you understand if I tell you? The word I used was lust. A sin. A lack of depth. Desire without ever
aspiring to the darkness of tangled roots, drying mud and what we look like in drought. It’s high tide. The
moon drags a fully
salted tide over us both. What started as a yearning for touch, a whispered secret, a honeyed afternoon in the
sun, I realise
has become a pattern of running and returning—and I’m still scared of how this looks: My
holy book said I should be transparent, clear, and free of attachment. Here I am: mud child, river monster,
burning
a fever to rid myself of this muck and to bring myself back to water. Part of me might always need
sand or saltgrass or mountains to define me. But I’m learning to feel
the depth, that there are ways to be that have been kept from me: what I feel is not lust but
a woman’s
capacity to love a woman: depth and depth and depth and depth and returning to skin
or roots, mud and lost leaves. You, the mangrove, reaching out not to correct but to join me here. Your whole
riverbed self resting on mine.
let myself flow I would lust after things like mangroves and girls don’t
run themselves out, drag over sand flats, show the sunset colours on their face, you know
better. I should contain bream, oyster beds, sea lice and reflections of magpie song and stay quiet. If
the mangroves wanted love they would reach out but they, too, are made of parts: roots, leaves, pneumatophor
—and I
suppose that’s from the complexity of holding together a landscape that’s more water than anything else. Will
you understand if I tell you? The word I used was lust. A sin. A lack of depth. Desire without ever
aspiring to the darkness of tangled roots, drying mud and what we look like in drought. It’s high tide. The
moon drags a fully
salted tide over us both. What started as a yearning for touch, a whispered secret, a honeyed afternoon in the
sun, I realise
has become a pattern of running and returning—and I’m still scared of how this looks: My
holy book said I should be transparent, clear, and free of attachment. Here I am: mud child, river monster,
burning
a fever to rid myself of this muck and to bring myself back to water. Part of me might always need
sand or saltgrass or mountains to define me. But I’m learning to feel
the depth, that there are ways to be that have been kept from me: what I feel is not lust but
a woman’s
capacity to love a woman: depth and depth and depth and depth and returning to skin
or roots, mud and lost leaves. You, the mangrove, reaching out not to correct but to join me here. Your whole
riverbed self resting on mine.
Spring 2026
Kathryn Reese is a queer writer living on Peramangk land in Adelaide, South Australia. She works in medical science and enjoys road trips, hiking and chasing frogs to record their calls for science. Her poems are in The Engine Idling, Temple in a City, Crowstep and Red Room Poetry. Flash in Glassworks, Blood + Honey & Literary Namjooning. Collaborative writing in Gone Lawn, Midway Journal & Many Wor(l)ds.
Art: Pamela Hobart Carter
While We Listen, 2025
An any-side-up, ink, pastel, and acrylic on (cheap) paper
While We Listen, 2025
An any-side-up, ink, pastel, and acrylic on (cheap) paper