Of a Necessary Darkness

Of a Necessary Darkness

Collage image of a woman with butterfly wings, another woman beneath her in a black dress, and a poem cut out of magazine articles. Poem text reads below the image.
"Of a Necessary Darkness"
Original art by James Diaz

If I'm not for love who will be that for me?
We are Our own maps
of a necessary darkness
tell yourself
this is home

James Diaz

(they/them)

James Diaz is the author of This Someone I Call Stranger, (Indolent Books, 2018) and All Things Beautiful Are Bent (Alien Buddha, 2021) as well as the founding editor of Anti-Heroin Chic. Their work has appeared or is forthcoming in Thrush Poetry, Corporeal, The Madrigal, The Lumiere Review, Rust + Moth, Selcouth Station, and Wrong Doing Mag. They live in upstate New York.