I’m rewatching the She-Ra episode where Glimmer gets sick for the first time
and I keep mistaking the screen for a
mirror. By which I mean, I too was once
adolescent and unconquerable:
purple hair; a body unmarked by pain.
Then, the bright unholiness of onset.
She screams, glitches into crimson static.
In the right light, even pain can sparkle.
Blood cells glinting into oblivion.
Flicker of agony, scarlet against
the ego. Candescence of a body
as it burns itself undone. If I am
to live this way–neurons blazing, my fists
clenched proudly against a whimper–let me
at least malfunction in a way that shines.
Arianna Monet, "I'm rewatching the She-Ra episode where Glimmer gets sick for the first time" from Freeze-Ray Poetry, Vol. 21. Copyright © 2022 by Arianna Monet. Reprinted by permission of Arianna Monet.