Will You LGB My Love?

My Love Hereafter
By Kai

Awaken my pure and unadulterated
desire to hold you.
This heart of mine craves your touch,
This body is a husk of yearning and intimacy.
I love the way your eyes shine the moment
we lock eyes, and the moment we do a dance
with our glances and cunning linguistics,
we know the way this attraction will go.
Magnetic and polarizing,
dynamic and breathtaking.
The woman’s place is in the arms
of her lover, caressed forever more,
laid out on my chest under the coziest of
blankets.

My love, remember this:
Our instincts are natural, immaculate and
imperfect.
The beauty of our humanity is sapphic by nature.
The way our fingers lock tightly
and faces flush greatly at the sight of each other
feels like home in a heartbeat,
And I couldn’t bear to be anywhere
away from you.

Hereafter, I vow to hold you close to me,
loving wholly and being your provider
Hereafter, I wish to call you “my girlfriend”
and feel the pride of loving the woman
I never knew I wanted back.
I want to feel your heartbeat hum its vibrations
through my temples as you stroke through my curls
with your lovely fingers.
I kiss each knuckle on your fingers for luck
blessing me with your presence,
But Hereafter I want to be your forever.
I want to be the one who cooks with you and
makes your bed and lays in the clean sheets with you.
I want to be the one with your ring on my finger
reciting our love to one another with my family.
I want to wake in the morning with you
and lay our bodies together by night.

I want to, hereafter,
Be 100% yours.

-Since her youth, Kai has always had a knack for writing out her feelings on the world, loving women, and happy accidents. When one is hated by many, eventually the talent and dedication are carried on through spite, and that’s exactly what Kai has done. 🙂 
 
Confession
By Serena Venusivia

Small coffee shop noises engulf us as you lead the way
to our favorite spot. I sit, immediately grasping my cup
for an anchor. You sit as well,
Cinnamon hair flowing with olive skin and electric green eyes.
You begin to speak and honey when I say
after the first few words my mind flew a-buzz with ecstasy
my body could’ve given electricity to the city for a week.

To bring myself back into reality,
I decide to play a game of focus and clarity.
I start with your lips. Soft, full, moving over
words that come to me as lullabies.
I watch intently, as if I would be tested, catching
every word with bated breath and nervous joy.
Try as I might, I can’t hear much more than the
thump-thump, thump-thump of my heart.

I move to your nose. How it scrunches when you smile
how it matches perfectly to the masterpiece before me.
What I would give to place my lips on that nose
over your cheeks over your lips to see
if they match like puzzle pieces.

My eyes shift to your hair, hoping it would be boring
just long enough so I could focus on what you’re actually saying.
All I can hear is music as I’m reminded of chocolate-velvet
mahogany-plush and think of how my hands could get
lost there, how they have the many nights we spent together
chatting and cherishing each other.
I want to speak but me, speaking? Right now?
It would be incoherent babble
slipping and falling and ailing and jumbling
my words fumbling over the many times I wanted to say “I love you.”
And now given the opportunity my brain
has turned to putty in your sight.
I have to say something, or risk you remaining
the unspoken nectar on my lips.

You take my silence as permission to keep talking.
I let myself rest on your eyes.
Emerald, shining, almond. I could stay here forever.
I blink and realize you’re waiting for my words now.
Didn’t I say I was nothing but incoherent babble right now?
Oh wait, that was just the incoherent babbling in my head.
But I know I must say something or you might think the worst.
And even though I know sometimes we don’t need words because when we’re together,
our souls communing, I have to speak.

To say I love you would be the zenith of understatements,
to say I like everything about you would feel lacking
in the intensity, the warmth the desire and jubilance I feel around you.
Knots form in my throat as if I could burst into tears.
I swallow myself down, deep and quaking and confess,
“Me too.”

My simplicity and honesty causes you to burst into laughter
as our hands join.
I join in.
And for what has felt like eternity, the knots ease. I feel like I can breathe.
And maybe, this is how love is supposed to be.

-Serena found a passion for writing at a young age. Putting pen to paper she took herself to fantastical worlds and learned more about herself than she could’ve imagined. Through her writing, she hopes you’ll also go on a journey. Whether that’s peace, happiness, love, etc., she’s glad her work is the one that moves you. When she’s not writing, she can be found painting or eating chocolate. 
 
If I Never Find Love
By Violette

If all I’ll ever have
Is scraps off other people’s dinner tables
Will you hold the pages of my past –
Caress the sides as you flip the pages
While you read what my heart once had to say

Dear reader, if I never find love again
Will you write in the margins with your pen
Scribble notes and marks in me
Where love and thought ought to be

If I never, ever find my own
Hand to hold and know I’m home

Will you hold and caress my little book
Put me in your home in a little nook
In a place where maybe I can look

At your home, at your place
In the world where you’ve carved a space
And watch your many loves unfold

And maybe, maybe now and then
Pick me up, take out your pen
Write in me, complete my soul

And maybe then, at least, I can be a place for you to land

And if enough lovers touch my hands
My crease my folds, I’ll sure be glad
And I can die knowing that – yes
I have been loved

-Violette is a poc lesbian writer based in Florida. She mainly writes about life, love and lesbian relationships. 
 

 

Mudita
By Adonis Diaz

Mudita is an ancient Pali word
That represents the pleasure that comes
From delighting in other people’s well-being

To love someone so much
That their entire happiness is enough for you
That their smile and laughter alone is
Enough to make your heart swell

I learned this word
And immediately thought
“I could write an entire poem
About how much I love you
With mudita being my end goal”

And then I remembered I don’t write love poems

It’s not that I don’t want to
I just don’t know how to love something without breaking it
In the same way that I don’t know how to write a poem
About something that I haven’t already destroyed

I am not gentle
Or kind with beautiful things
I am not beautiful to beautiful people
And oh my gosh
You
Are so
Beautiful

And every time I find something beautiful
I spit on it
I set it on fire
I watch it crumble and forget why it loved me
I wait until it tells me it hates me
The beautiful thing, so repulsed
Disgusted
Until I finally begin to think
“Yes, this is what I deserve”

And that makes a pretty sad poem
I’m good at making things sad

But I think I love you

And I felt like you deserved a love poem
Where I didn’t sound terrified
A love poem that wasn’t just a set up
For all of the ways I was about to break you
Or use you for some type of self-validation

I wanted to write about the light in your smile
And the bonfire’s warmth of your voice
A love poem where all I want
Is your unadulterated joy

And it terrified me
I didn’t feel like I deserved it
I didn’t feel like that was the kind of love
That I could ever have
I only know the version where I get upset in the end
Where I get so frustrated with being in love
That I have to run

I don’t want to break such a lovely person
In order to be able to feel like I can write about you
But I took one look into your eyes
And realized that I was destined to shatter this

The most delicate thing that I have touched in so long
My fingers are desperate to squeeze you to the point of breaking
Every single bone in my hands vibrates
With a fiery violence in response to how perfect you feel

Meanwhile with your hands
Those gentle and careful hands
You have crawled inside of me
And dug out a space somewhere
And there you will exist without even trying
I hope, for all of my life

And I want to promise not to break you

And I can’t commit to that

Because whether I like it or not
My love is complicated
My love is messy and painful
And breaks things
And breaks
Always broken in the end

My love screams at you
Because she doesn’t know how to say
I am jealous of all that you are

She stops looking at you
Like someone who lights up her life
And instead looks at you like she hates you

My love is bitter that she will never be able to walk like you
Never be able to charm an entire room like you
My love doesn’t know how to just
Be happy with you

And you deserve a love that is
So happy for you

The softness of your love
Needs to be reciprocated
By any other careful soul

You deserve someone that will look at you
And be able to give you a love
Entirely with the aim
Of cultivating that mudita thing

That selfless desire to see you
At your happiest

-Adonis is a bisexual Mexican-American woman from central California. She makes art about her experiences with love, friendship and chronic/mental health issues. Adonis is passionate about encouraging other LGB artists to put their authentic selves forward and is overjoyed to be able to share a platform through LGB Alliance. In her free time, she enjoys drawing, journaling, and playing Animal Crossing. You can find her on Instagram @adonisisaway 
 
Conquerants du coeur d’un roi
By Carnet D’Androphile

Ils sont sortie des beaux rêves d’un jeune homme
Celui qu’on voit dans mon reflet passionnée
Ils s’envolent avec les clés de mon royaume
Des mots pour tout mes amours non partagées
Réunissez-les et vous auriez les récits
Des magnifiques conquérants de mon cœurs
L’allure de leurs démarches m’ont séduit
Ils avaient tous ce regard qui me désarmait
Leurs rires sont des plaisirs pour toutes heures.
Dans leurs victoires,leurs sourires m’illuminait
Les héros de mes passions avait des qualités
Mais leurs imperfections m’ont aussi envoûtée.
Ils avaient des histoires et des titres variés,
Le quatrième était un chaman lâcheur
Le troisième était un forgeron moqueur
Le second était une aventurier grossier
Le premier était un voleur et le meilleur,
Était-il le meilleur car il a volé un cœur ?
Est ce que je recherche ses successeurs ?
Ils étaient les prétendants au trône rêvé
Car ils avaient la ruse,la force et la beauté
Leurs touchée et leurs paroles pouvait tout faire
Ils détruisent,transformaient et créaient des passions
Pour diriger avec un rois qui est trop solitaire
Mais ce sont des fables qui bercent d’illusions
Car le retour d’un mot d’amour lui est son salut
Et le royaume sera sauvé par le baisé de son élue.

Conquerors of a King’s Heart 
They came out of the sweet dreams of a young man
The one you see in my passionate reflection
They fly away with the keys to my kingdom
Words for all my unrequited loves
Put them together and you’ll have the stories
Magnificent conquerors of my heart
The pace of their approach seduced me
They all had that look that disarmed me.
Their laughter is a pleasure for all hours.
In their victories, their smiles enlightened me
The heroes of my passions had qualities
But their imperfections also bewitched me.
They had varied stories and titles,
The fourth was a cowardly shaman
The third was a mocking blacksmith
The second was a rude adventurer
The first was a thief and the best,
Was he the best because he stole a heart ?
Am I looking for his successors ?
They were the pretenders to the dream throne
For they had cunning, strength and beauty
Their touch and their words could do anything
They destroyed, transformed and created passions
To rule with a king who is too lonely
But these are fables that delude
For the return of a word of love is his salvation
And the kingdom will be saved by the kiss of its chosen one.

-Carnet D’Androphile is a French student in master of scientific computation. journaldunandrophile.wordpress.com 
 
My Love
By Carol

You are still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.
20 years have passed since I first laid eyes on you
And my heart still beats just a little faster
When you enter a room.

I miss you when you sleep
Even though
I am lying beside you.

Remember when we sat on our porch after that snow storm?

A full moon gleamed off the fresh snow
And oak trees cracked under the weight of it
Falling to the earth in snaps and crashes.

We sat there holding hands
In silence
Wrapped in that moment.

Raw beautiful power, like you.

I have seen so much beauty with you in my life.

There are a great many things I wish
I would have never seen
But you, my love
Are not one of them. 
 

 

Love is Imperfect
by Jos

My notion of love was so immature when we met all those years ago;
Fragmented and scarred from the shrapnel of love bombs.
It became such an enigmatic concept when I dug past the skin and bones of that simpler time.
To this day it turns me inside out and back in, again.
How desperately I crave to understand this thing I cannot hold
or even consistently describe.

It seems like love should be tangible like a cup overflowing or the way the dog smiles when we walk in the door.
But how does one hold a smile or the contents of a cup running over?

I thought I could give you my love.
I could write it to you over and over and over again
and I did
but love cannot be quantified.
Not like that.

Is love an omnibus concept?
Is it a collection of all the good things in life or all the feelings experienced throughout life?

Maybe love is how full my heart feels when I hear you laugh-truly laugh?
Maybe love is listening to stories often re-told as if they were new tales?
Maybe love is how safe I feel when I’m little spoon or how content I feel to be big spoon?
Maybe love is learning how to make healthy boundaries and respect yours?
Maybe love is the way my stomach bottoms out if we’re apart and you call in distress?
Maybe love is cooking good food together or brewing coffee for each other?
Maybe love is planning for the future even though we’re still broken by our pasts?
Maybe love is staying up all night to wait anxiously at the emergency vet?
Maybe love is fighting for what we believe in without regard to the costs?
Maybe love is getting lost in your voice, your eyes, your smile?
Maybe love evolves; maybe it grows and changes as we do?

I may never truly understand this nebulous concept of love and that’s ok.

But
When I say, “I love you” what I mean is
I will fight for you.
I will hold you close when you need me.
I will run to your open arms when I need shelter.
I will encourage you.
I will protect you.
I will be happy for you.
I will always be in your corner.

When I say “I love you” I mean it – I mean all of it.

-For YB

-Jos is a DIY lesbian aka a ‘Jane of all trades, master of none but is oftentimes better than a master of one.’ 
 
The letter I never sent
By Alicia Colas

I carry a letter in my pocket,
A letter you’ll never read,
Because I’m a coward, darling
You see, Nature made me a lover of the fair sex, and who could be fairer than you?
How could I not love you?
I’m guilty of the sweetest crime
But I can never say,
And you can never read this
Nature made us two different kinds of flower
You’re a sunflower and I’m a four-leaf clover, I think
Cos
You’re the sun and I’m so lucky
So lucky
So lucky I can call you darling,
I can hold you in my arms,
I can say I love you
I’m so lucky we speak so often,
Even though we don’t speak the same language
And that’s alright, darling,
That’s ok you don’t know what I mean when I call you darling, when I hold you in my arms,
when I say
I love
I love
I love you
That’s ok
Cos I’m so lucky
So damn lucky
So damned
Did you know, darling, that violets were once thought to cure melancholy?
I knew that
So I filled my room,
My eyes,
And my heart
Of violets
Until their smell replaced yours in my memory And it did
It did
The pain changed
It was the agony of secret love
It is the bittersweet ache of love going away
Do you hear this?
Darling
It is the sound of love going
Going
Going
Gone. I was so lucky.

-Alicia Colas is a 23 years old Frenchwoman who studies international law and literature, and strives to become a novelist. 
 
I Love Me When I Love You
By Sapphosdottir

On the good days, when I hate myself at best
I see
Boring brown eyes
Plain black hair
I laugh too loud
And love too much
But you were a storm
That no one ever expected
Lighting came in a flash
Floodwaters washed it all away
And now I see something new
And now I see you
But I see me too
With all the love in my chest
Warm brown eyes chase away the cold
And I’m home safe
Brilliant black hair, enough to make the night sky weep
Raven-haired beauty
Thunderous laughter and not an ounce of shame
Like the clouds overjoyed
They can finally rain
And your affection pours and pours
It flows so freely
With no end in sight
I’m not drowning
I learned how to swim in your waters
Because I love you
I love you and all the things that you are
Lies washed from my eyes
All that you are, is all that I am
My eyes in you, my hair with you
I hear us laughing
I see us loving
And even on the worst days, I love me when I love you 

Our cover image was created by @SarahMcSquish (on Instagram).Sarah is a lesbian who puts all her energy towards lesbian representation in art and media!