Troy Cabida
after “Inventory // Personal” by Sophia Georghiou
I’m not as effervescent as I look online.
I slept with your husband.
I didn’t have to question your existence
you and the kids just showed up, a streak of light
on the phone he turned downwards
on the bedside table. Before he climbed in
he opened the hotel window
to let in the breeze, to dissipate the noise.
All of Russell Square could hear
the things he wanted to do to me,
the things he did, the things he couldn’t.
My friends tell me to be ashamed
for cracking into your marriage. I say
the entire time I wasn’t even myself:
I used a fake name, wore my gym trainers
and sex boxers. Told him I’ve been naked all day.
It was whoever that was that held him.
Troy Cabida is the author of Neon Manila (2025), Two Poems (2025), Symmetric of Bone: Poems after Elsa Peretti (2024), and War Dove (2020). His other work appears in The Madrigal, & Change, berlin lit, Plastic Language, Seaford Review, 100 Queer Poems, and Tiffany & Co.
andotherpoems.com 