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"Second Parent" by Taylor Byas Originally published in Portable Gray

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Resting Bitch Face

The titular poem from my forthcoming collection, Resting Bitch Face, coming from Soft Skull Press in the Fall of 2025.

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“Shame is a flickering streetlight in the middle of the night.”

—Billy-Ray Belcourt, Coexistence

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the vocabulary of loss is the dictionary

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"Accidents never happen when the room is empty. / Everyone understands this. Everyone needs a place."

-Richard Siken, from War of the Foxes

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“The questions of the fathers make poetry out of the daughters.”

—from Dead in Long Beach California, by Venita Blackburn

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“And So You Want a Poem” by Taylor Byas, after Anita Scott Coleman.

Originally published in Frontier Poetry

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"The Therapist Asks Me, 'What Are You Afraid Of?'", Taylor Byas

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New duplex of mine in New Ohio Review! Shoutout to Jericho Brown forever for the form. To hear me read the poem:

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From HAVE YOU BEEN LONG ENOUGH AT TABLE by Leslie Sainz

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The men used to call

at all hours, but what I miss

most are the late-night

talks, ones where I held the phone

so close, it pressed like a gun.

-“Calling Late” from THE TREES WITNESS EVERYTHING by Victoria Chang

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Longing for this.

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My debut full-length poetry collection, I DONE CLICKED MY HEELS THREE TIMES, is out today! 🥹💜💛

BOOK DESCRIPTION:

Inspired by The Wiz, this debut, full-length poetry collection celebrates South Side Chicago and a Black woman’s quest for self-discovery—one that pulls her away from the safety of home and into her power.

I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times takes its inspiration and concept from the cult classic film The Wiz to explore a Black woman’s journey out of the South Side of Chicago and into adulthood. The narrative arc of The Wiz—a tumultuous departure from home, trials designed to reveal new things about the self, and the eventual return home—serves as a loose trajectory for this collection, pulling readers through an abandoned barn, a Wendy’s drive-thru, a Beyoncé video, Grandma’s house, Sunday service, and the corner store. At every stop, the speaker is made to confront her womanhood, her sexuality, the visibility of her body, alcoholism in her family, and various ways in which narratives are imposed on her.

Subverting monolithic ideas about the South Side of Chicago, and re-casting the city as a living, breathing entity, I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times spans sestinas, sonnets, free-verse, and erasures, all to reimagine the concept of home. Chicago isn’t just a city, but a teacher, a lingering shadow, a way of seeing the world.

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Cannot describe how cool it is to be in Chicago Mag’s “Best of Chicago” issue 🥹

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#Goodreads is doing a giveaway of my book that comes out next month! Click the link to enter for a chance to win a free copy!! 🥰🫶🏽

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Love Poem Attempt 3/?

By Taylor Byas

I’ll say it—the most remarkable way a man

has touched me is when he didn’t intend to, found

the heat of me on accident. I’m saying his hand

punctured the gap between our backs, rooted around

for the blanket we shared and swept my rib-ridged side.

In movies, that touch is the domino

that starts the chain, but his bed did not abide

by rules of fantasy. He touched me and, oh,

I held my breath. Waited for the regret

he never felt. My God, he touched me then slid

closer beneath the duvet, our spines close-set

arches that joined in the dark, kissing. I did

not know it then, but his fingers flexed with want

into the night. His heart at my back. Desire out front.

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Happy Valentine’s Day ❣️🫶🏽