Poetry by Tyler Elizabeth Hurula

                ​Timo Newton-Syms CC



​
​Biting Back

I used to count the silence between 
each of your steps – my room 
in the basement, I had the entire 
house mapped by the way the floors 

creaked under the weight of your feet. 
I walked as if the concrete itself 
was slowing me down to ensure 
I stepped on every crack 

in the sidewalk. Not to break 
your back, but to even everything 
out. I made sure to step on just 
as many cracks with my left foot 

as I did with my right. I hoped 
if I could keep everything balanced 
I could keep your temper tethered. 
My sister pushed my finger onto a piece 

of glass and I bled crimson drops 
on the stairway on my way to find
you. Your hand printed purple stars
on her backside. The social worker 

pulled me out of recess to ask 
if it was true. I fucking lied 
for you, Dad. I didn’t know what else 
to do. You drove me to high school

so early the sky was still bruised 
black. I’d watch lights flash 
by from your beat up car, speeding
to match the violence racing from 

your lips, daggers steered 
in my direction. A single silent 
salty tear slid down my face 
and you said that’s right, cry, smart ass, 

cry. And you know what? I do.
I cry all the time. I even have a shirt 
that says crying is good for you
and I wear it like a big fuck you. 

I have grown into my bad behavior. 
I stole the bitch from your bite 
and bent it backward until it broke 
under the weight of my becoming.





​Loving Abundantly

The thing I love most about love
is its defiance. Love is active in its refusal to stay buried.
It grows into something whole
through every obstacle -- chooses not to end.
It is ever evolving and turns into something new, sure,
but overall it just stains itself into a blush

that rejects a watering down. That blush
paints my chest and ears when I’m around my love
as we walk around the park, wishing it was the shore.
Someday they’ll take me there to show me where they buried
the memories of their family in the sand. They send
me love letters while I’m dancing in the whole

of the life we’ve built together, while I’m building a whole
other relationship with my wife - who I blush
around, still, after 8 years. No end
in sight. How fucking sweet is it that love
is an expansive case of brilliance? I never have to bury
any of the honey seeping from my chest. I am so sure

of the wonder I have for both of them, and they assure
me they are both in love with the whole-
ness I’ve found in loving more than just one. I don’t bury
who I am, but completely fall into the tender blush
of both their hands holding mine, embraced in a love 
whose eternal vastness ceases to end.

My love lives in the building across from me and my wife. The end
of the street is the farthest I’ll have to reach for them. It sure
is a treat to be so close to the overflowing nearness of their love.
I grow a plethora of plants to propagate in both spaces, whole
gardens flourish with the snips we share, the leaves are blush
colored and print reflections in the glass windows. I bury

the scarcity radiating from the haters, bury
their belief that this abundance of love must end,
and revel in the elephantine blush
of this too much. I bask in the shore
of my love as they build me a bath tray, the whole
thing covered in glitter because they know I love

baths and glitter. Loves, bury
me whole in the excess of your never ending
kiss, and sweep me up into the shore of your blush.


​

Tyler Elizabeth Hurula (she/her) is a poet based out of Denver, CO. She is queer and polyamorous, and is cat mom to two fur babies and a plethora of plants. She has not been previously published and her poems feature love, polyamory, family, growing up, and being queer. Her top three values are connection, authenticity, and vulnerability and she tries to encompass these values in her writing as well as everyday life.

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