Rioting with Marsha P. Johnson
I take Marsha P. Johnson’s hand into mine, collecting sweat between our palm lines. Cold sweat.
She smiles back into my throat as we miss the intersection, J walking across the street, impatient.
Our fingers are wrapped into each other’s grooves when she offers to share her lipstick with me.
I say yes, and I beat my face down to match her contours and complexion. We take turns yelling
“Fuck this city! Fuck this city!” But at the same time, we are the blood of this city—rushing
through the streets like body currents, veiny intersections like aoritic highways. We are the
lifeblood of the city. A crowd surrounds us, pulsating like a heartache. Marsha bends down into
the current to grab a stone. I bend with her. And she chucks the thing through someone’s window
(someone spitting at us). We laugh as the shattered glass brocades the air in sparkling pieces and
the dimples we wear swallow our teeth. We lift the bottoms of our dresses to run the rest of the
way to Central Park, where we will feed each other stories and kiss softly.
eric (any/all) is a writer and sensitive soul currently bending the edges of their tarot cards in Hopkinsville, KY. They hold a B.A. in English from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln and have worked editorially with HG Literary, Prairie Schooner, and Split/Lip Press among others. When they are not professionally overthinking, eric finds time to read, lightly strum their bass guitar, and play video games. Their work appears in Stanchion, Embryo Concepts, and Wild Roof Journal.
