Transgender poet writes about love

you have to rework your

poems to expose your body

in the mirror as a woman

hurting your body binding

that body how you see gender or don’t

see gender unpack it rebox it

metaphor it so the public can open you up

find themselves inside you, comprehend

what it is you are, you it. you they.

bite sized it. bite sized they.

call their mom and read you to her

you as a concept of body

man inside the woman

gay man inside the woman

am i faking it have i got the surge

ry doing it for attention for clout

opened my ears closed them again

realized the sound, the dis taste (like

kitchen trash can: tobacco guts 

and grade a egg shells)

transgender fear transgender 

burying transgender death trans

gender death transgender death

what happens when everyone you love

dies and dies and dies their ghosts

will staple themselves to you and ask you

to read eulogies list apologies

i’m sorry casey i’m sorry rachel

i'm sorry aanav

i’m sorry i don’t write about it 

enough as if the words choke up

that quintessential transgender

hate choosing the exposure

face-to-face i take that bullet

and reject it from my chest

ask it where it came from

ask its name if it still feels

the same it used to if it mourns as a boy

or a girl what it is to be loud 

and not-loud cicada shells littering

piles of rocks cars that

do and don’t stop bus stops dogs at 

bus stops eating plants transgender 

poet chooses to write about love like 

they have felt it

Featured in Volume XVIII of The White Squirrel Literary and Arts Magazine