#trans poet
Confession:
I’ve been thinking about
being a body
again.
About seeing and being seen.
I’m not sure when
the last time ended
or this time began
or if I’ve ever really
stopped
but I do know
I’ve burnt myself out
on this so many times
that I’ve nicknamed
my teeth
cinders
my voice less a spark
and more
embers
soot lining my lungs
I cough up clouds of words
trying to form the dust into
something more tangible
than my hands,
a reality or
a truth that
all the kerosene in the world
couldn’t shake.
The politics of not being
is a two party system
split your body into caucuses
passing votes on a gaze
like an entryway
that I keep holding onto
the threshold of;
wearing through the mat
thinning out the welcomes
the liminality of
being between visibility
and disappearing
dropping opacity
to ether thinness
like pretenses.
The nihilism in this
is a quaint conversation
to have with yourself
when all you’ve ever had
is quaint conversations
with yourself
standing waiting on
a bus platform
but not making a connection
keeping yourself at bay
/at a distance
holding yourself with
kids gloves,
your body worn like
mittens pinned
to your winter jacket
yarn threaded through
the arms
behind your back
that you can’t tug
to try to hug
your own form,
the wet wool of your own skin
chafing against your hand
inside of you
but still reaching
searching
for something
to hold onto
and in the desperation finding
that maybe all of this debating
these parliamentary rows
that I keep having
really aren’t worth having
at all.
So maybe I’ll call
my body a misnomer
maybe I’ll call
my heart a heathen
for beating inside of it,
a punch drunk lover
of a pulse pounding
in the flower garden
of my chest
hard bone like fists
booming; blooming
black and blue
across my ventricles
the thunderous roar
of a ribcage rattled
the subtle click
of a doors locked picked
like a middle name
of nothing taken,
a leaf off the branch
of a family tree
falling
away
this battle I seem
to love to fight
is never without
casualty
this nation of
a self
caught in between
the lines
this body
politic
the machine
that always forwards
the war.
