I.
my body's monster
can either mean my body
[OWNS] a monster
or my body [IS] a monster
II.
sometimes i want to leave my skin in one of the terrific and dangerous
ways other transsexuals do
III.
so i am reading the blog of someone who is transitioning back to
their birth gender
after dysphoria in both binaries / and they say
i can’t look at myself anymore &
i feel like a
freak | monstrous | frankensteined
and there is no binary that could convince me to pray
to it
but the creature that lives shuttered against
the wall of my chest
hears something familiar and
rears its malform | monstrous | miscreation
IV.
in the supermarket some child always shrieked stickily to their
discontent adult
IS THAT A BOY | OR A GIRL
at first i’d hide in the next aisle to break into some kind of
shamed sob
then i’d sneer back at whichever newly-toothed mouth the
question came from
WHAT IF I’M NEITHER
WHAT IF I’M BOTH
WHAT IF I’M NOTHING
WHAT IF I’M LEAVING
WHAT IF I’M GONE
V.
after i get top surgery, my lover visits me
in recovery &
holds my hand & when my bandages
come off, he
leaves.
VI.
i flinch when i drive through intersections because
my body remembers a car accident it survived
(my body
remembers it did not have a limp prior)
i flinch when i see
myself in the mirror because
my body remembers a sloppy surgery it
survived
(my body remembers what grew there before it was un-grown)
i
flinch when you say u know i love u right? because
my body
doesn’t remember a love that it survived
VII.
i wonder how many years it will take of me stumbling
over the
prayer following another confident voice before
i remember
the cadence of community as
smoothly as i do
the threat of christianity
/ what wonder / a prayer
my abusers never memorized / an altar i wasn’t molested
behind
/ a religious service i didn’t spend just as long
trying to scrub
off /
VIII.
i am spending chanukah reading a historical account of
anti-semitism
a blonde boy with blue eyes is still a jew if he’s born a jew
my father went to catholic school and they tried to beat the jew out
of him
IX.
what is a jew
but an anxiety
growing sourly
ashamed of itself
X.
the borders are closed so we video-chat across time-zones
our voices crackle like glass breaking
last year i set my curtains on fire waiting for the light to
(((fade)))
XI.
what do leftists dream about?
cop cars on fire | being arrested
being loved |
lovers being arrested
setting cop cars on fire with lovers
XII.
someone else's meatsuit && i are making out on their couch
instead of moving like dreams
our sweat congeals && we laugh
i move to choke her like the faggots we are
&& i wake up,
caught mid-----