let me love while hurting

or: sweet, like all our futures that never happened

and I'm still here. still. I'm here

Last year was hard and this year has started much the same way. But I have supports now that I didn't have then.

In a few weeks it'll be a whole year since I, A) got my heart broken such that I still haven't quite put it back together, and B) first read my poems at an open mic.

Since then I've solidified some important relationships and made new connections. I got my heart broken again, twice– once by unrequited love, once by death. I wrote a lot of poems. I've been a featured reader several times over. I've gone on tour. I wrote a book, and then another book, and now both of them are coming out this year.

Not to get all, like, witchy-birth-chart-angel-numbers-woo on y'all, but I've learned that leaning into my core truths, my guiding lights, is the thing that has kept me going and has helped me get back up when I needed to. Those lights have turned out to be Poetry and Faggotry. Leaning into my art and leaning into my queerness (and transness) have gotten me closer and closer to the life I want to have. When things have felt grim, it's when I've gotten disconnected from those principles.

And, consistently, the thing that reorients me to these principles is other people. My husband and my partners. My chosen sister. My close friends. The people I see at poetry readings. The people I see at the leather bar and the lesbian cocktail lounge and the other explicitly queer spaces I frequent. They're the ones who remind me, over and over again, who I really am.

I'm trying to be better about remembering. At least I know when I forget, someone will be around to remind me.

updates (BIG ONES)

I have a new website!

I got fed up with my previous host (especially their pushing AI into all corners of their product) and wanted a fresh look.

I also really wanted the bridgetgordon.gay domain.

Preorders for my debut chapbook are now LIVE

From the cover description:

a girl in the closet is haunted by the ghosts of trauma, abuse, and alienation. at some of the most pivotal, desperate moments in her life, she finds a slip of paper with a note addressed to her. the note is the same every time.

“the rest is up to you, love”

the rest is up to you, love comes out the first week of June. Preorders are available NOW.

I'm headed to the Midwest Poetry Mashup!

I'm heading there as part of an indie team (individual registrants matched up by the event organizers) and competing for... prizes? I guess? Mostly I'm just excited to make art for a new audience and meet up with some online poetry friends.

Summer chapbook release readings!

I'll be hosting a couple events and featuring at some regular reading series this summer to celebrate the release of the chapbook. All of them are FREE so please come out and let me do poetry at you!

Aaaaaaaaaand the big reveal...

I HAVE A FULL-LENGTH POETRY COLLECTION COMING OUT THIS YEAR

I am absolutely fucking THRILLED to announce that my debut full-length poetry collection, "if you know the color of their eyes it's already too late," will be published by Raging Opossum Press!!

More details as I'm able to share, but you can expect it on bookstore shelves this fall!

what's Bridget reading?

the future is a blue sky and a full tank of gas
I saw the future. I did
and in it
I was alive

what's Bridget listening to?

siiiiiiiiiigh

other people's poems

Lack of sleep bruising deep
hollows beneath your eyes,
the pale yellow of pollen
-stained lips, like mine when,
as a child, I bit through
flowers, believing anything
beautiful enough—when
swallowed—might stay.

"Ekphrasis on Nude Selfie as Portrait of Saint Sebastian," by Torrin A. Greathouse

Love you,

Bridget