The first news reports of Mollie Judith Olgin and Mary Christine Chapa
shot in the grassy, vacant area of a park
said it was unclear how they got there in the first place.
It’s really not much of a mystery --
were you ever 19 and in love with a girl?
I know I would have loved sneaking off to knee-deep grass
following the scent of starlight on her skin
to find a nighttime place to kiss without creating a scene.
Have you ever created a scene just by
kissing a girl in public?
You can never un-know what it feels like
to provoke disgust in strangers.
To wonder if they’ll just whisper or if
they actually want to hurt you.
Where do you go when you’re 19
and all you can think about are her lips?
Perhaps to the knee-deep grass of Violet Andrews Park
with no one but the moon to watch.
Gabrielle Korn is a 23-year-old writer based in New York City, an organizer of the New York City Dyke March and a coordinator at the Lesbian Herstory Archives. Her writing has been published in The Huffington Post, RH Reality Check, BlogHer, Autostraddle, On The Issues Magazine, AfterEllen, The Bilerico Project, and more
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