ISAIAH NEWMAN
The Next Time You See Me, I’ll Be Three Feet Taller and Have Cannons Mounted on My Shoulders
because I haven’t played in years but I still know Blastoise
can fuck you up. In synagogue hallways full of steam-
shirted, kippahed boys, this was our language.
We all knew we could evolve into the power to flood
the world. We’d greet each other with our favorite monsters,
asking: what do you want
to become? What weapons will you make from your body?
We slid cards across the marble and when our fathers left
the sanctuary we each had an answer. I prayed mine wasn’t final.
You don’t subscribe to that gender stuff
but you didn’t watch me graduate from 8-bit shuffles
into full-color shimmers. My first Shabbat in a decade,
clothed in twilight, I fused my whisper to the full-throated
blessings and wept. Gone: the childhood urge to sneak
into the tall grass. Gone: the will to grind myself into strength.
I had found a rare candy, a way to level up without anger. Still, I want
to battle you. I want you confused. To hurt yourself
in your confusion. To be frozen, paralyzed, poisoned.
I want you to faint in a single hit.
I want my badge of victory. I’ll become shiny, then:
lavender limbs and a moss green shell
to cover my back from the eyes of God.
Isaiah Newman (they/he) is a writer and social work graduate student living in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They write both fiction and poetry, and are currently working on a linked collection of short stories. Their first published short story is forthcoming from Waxwing. This is their first publication.