i want to live without the fear of deportation

but i don’t got that privilege so i grab my phone, / download grindr / share my nudes with those who ask

but i don’t got that privilege
so i grab my phone, download grindr
share my nudes with those who ask

i invite the hairy, stocky femme over & we explore our bodies
lick each other’s neck, ears, pits, and nips
he bites my belly  i bite his thigh

we touch one another in places we didn’t know we had
when we are tired of grabbing, pulling, and caressing, we kiss and kiss
until i reach for the drawer and imagine the virgin of guadalupe weeping with approval

i take out the leather collar and leash adorned with a sterling silver buckle and snap hook
we decide that we both want to wear them so we take turns in being free
every tug and pull opens a new portal to the future, a world that could have been and is

how dangerous we are to know of our aliveness and pleasure
how criminal we are to experiment with our power, our softness
how terroristly of us to know that at that moment, the world is us, we are the world

he cums on my right leg and cock, i cum on his torso
we lick each other thoroughly, eat our own liquids, ‘tis our rebirth
we lay next to one another, each of our legs propped on the others leg and we fall asleep

when we wake, we commit to world again and again
i spit in his mouth, he spits in mine, we moan loud enough for my neighbors to grow quiet
and in that moment i realize that yes, this is why i crossed a fucking border

About the author

Dr. Alan Pelaez Lopez is an AfroIndigenous (Coastal Zapotec) poet, installation and adornment artist from Oaxaca, México. Their work attends to the quotidian realities of undocumented migrants in the United States, the Black condition in Latin America, and the intimate kinship units that trans and nonbinary people build in the face of violence. Their debut visual poetry collection, Intergalactic Travels: poems from a fugitive alien (The Operating System, 2020), was a finalist for the 2020 International Latino Book Award. They are also the author of the chapbook to love and mourn in the age of displacement (Nomadic Press, 2020). While they are an artist, Alan has also been organizing with undocumented migrants in the United States for over ten years and firmly believes that art is a portal into the future, but which future? That depends on the artist and the ideologies that move them.