Shoulders back,
chin up high,
I'm trying to look normal,
but this ID tells a lie,
and it is making me look
like a criminal.

This photo is ideal
with a serial number
on a mugger's profile,
on a database all alone.
My identity is distilled to this:
a stranger with a face of stone.

The camera captured everything
except my personality,
my smile, my kind eyes
and what makes me, me.
As my face became a moment,
falsified for bureaucracy.

©️Lizzie Bevis

Light,
The light from above has bestowed upon me the urge to dance, despite it all, all, all. A spark has spread a little fire—the music never stopped, despite it all.  

Affection,
Facing slowly—affection all over the floor. Summer has not started yet, but there is heat, devotion, warmth in absence. I nod to the sun. I turn towards the dappled, bronzed skin of mine.

Jazz,
There is something ferocious living inside this four-cornered apartment, where the absence of childhood has taken half my life—but there are flowers, flowers in my head. Slowly dancing in the whiskers of the afternoon—velvety, yes, velvety notes striking the rhythm of my body. Swaying, swaying, almost lost in the murmur of the piano—the saxophone aggravates the thrill in my bones. I look up at the ceiling; colors start to swirl even more. Strings spill like liquid—smooth and endless, more and more. Conversing here and there, I am alive again.  

“Turn your face towards the sun,” they say. I dreamed of my childhood, and the heat of the sun felt like slow jazz in the afternoon.