my mother tells me she
just thought i was
quirky
like the head tilt that
didn’t go away until i
got glasses at eight years old,
and then was “four eyes” up until
high school graduation
like how, still as a child
i would count the words in
every sentence before speaking,
and if the amount wasn’t an even
number i would hit myself until
the skin of my small hands
was a bright and angry red
like the head-shaking,
hand-wringing, knuckle and
finger-bend-biting, gentle swaying side
to side like a videogame character
waiting to be chosen
like how my mom told me,
mid-20s when it didn’t hurt quite so much,
that she went to the elementary school principal
because she ‘thought there was something
wrong with her son, and should he be
tested for autism?’
but no, they told her, don’t worry
he’s fine, he’ll grow out of it,
and by the time that it had been admitted
girls could have autism, i wasn’t
even a girl anymore
but i wasn’t fine, and i
didn’t grow out of it, and that
quirkiness became a length of rope,
just enough for a noose
and i was quirky and an
old soul, but in that polite way that
adults mean to say that there’s something
wrong with you
and i was sixteen then,
stilly quirky and an old
soul, and standing behind a thin
paper curtain in the first of two years
of psychiatric wards, handing a nurse
my boxers with the pad still in it,
stained with blood
but no, the hospital couldn’t give me
birth control to stop the periods that
caused gender dysphoria so bad i
had to make myself bleed in other ways to cope,
because they were a religious institution
and my stomach still hurt from the pills
when the doctor i was forced to meet with,
crombury, rhymes with cranberry,
told me that i wasn’t actually transgender,
silly girl,
it’s just a diversion tactic
still don’t know what i was diverting from,
and he never did clarify, but i sure
must be in it for the long con now, huh?
and there was something wrong with me,
likely still is, since i never did outgrow
that autism, just got told i was too
high functioning to be diagnosed, to get
any supports
and i was quirky,
an old soul,
and not like other girls, but worse,
and then not even a girl at all
and the adults would smile and
say these things, because they couldn’t
just say there was something
wrong with me
and sure that builds character,
or whatever,
but it’s the kind of character that makes
you weird at parties
and i’m real ****** tired of
being weird at parties
Apr 18
Apr 18, 2026 at 1:51 AM UTC
tell my mom that
i didn’t cry, when they
came for me
even if it’s a lie,
especially if it’s a lie
tell her about the
exact jacket and boots
that i’d like to wear,
and to please not put me
in the ground
don’t tell her about the
tears that streamed down
my cheeks and mixed with the
blood dribbling from my
nose and mouth
tell her what i would
have wanted her to have,
and make sure she takes even
what she feels she doesn’t deserve,
because she does
don’t tell her how i kept the
knife my father gave me and
that the blood on it
wasn’t mine
tell her that i’m sorry
for making the conscious choice to
shorten my own life expectancy
so i could live out what was left
of it in the way that i wanted
don’t tell her how the scar stretching
across my chest was too low to be
reopened in autopsy, but the scotch
broom on my collarbones made
the perfect guideline
tell her i saw the sun rise in
pinks and blues that morning,
and turned my face to that light,
instead of away
Apr 9
Apr 9, 2026 at 4:41 AM UTC
the pain is a gift
this time
like the two drains that
curled up and around under
my skin, and the bruised ribs
that i felt under the cut
nerve endings
like the scar, stretched and
light on the sides, keloid in the
middle, that reaches armpit
to armpit, and the times i
stained various shirt sleeves with
blood that i wasn’t able to feel
like the first person who saw
me naked saw me as a man,
and never mind what came after,
because every part of me was
seen, and loved, however briefly
that may have been
and the pain is a gift
this time,
like sitting shirtless in worn
boxers, giving myself a shot
in the stomach every week, and
the bruise if i put the needle in wrong
like every time i cut myself shaving,
like i haven’t been doing this
for the last close to nine years,
the face that looks back at me
from the mirror is mine,
and mine alone
and i have given myself many gifts,
not just the pain of rebuilding myself
from the ground up, but the beauty of
that first sunrise after thinking it was time
i didn’t see another, and the getting to
grow old as the man i was always
meant to be
Feb 24
Feb 24, 2026 at 11:58 PM UTC
we bring a bottle of bubbly
berry wine down under a bridge
to do some fishing
no glasses, like either of us
would have long-stem, anyway,
so you crack it open and we
pass it back and forth
i take a long swig from
where your mouth was on
the lip of the bottle, and the
scrabbling of claws along my
nerves goes quiet
perched on a rock, i watch as
you are braver than me, confidently stepping
out onto farther rocks,
think of that one summer when suddenly
you were up to your waist in lake water
to untangle your line from sunken branches
and i think about you a lot,
sometimes blushing into my cups,
but most of the time not,
yet still unable to say anything aloud
you dredged the river bed and brought
me in my little water-logged dinghy
back to shore, and i’m certain i’ll
eventually find the right words to
thank you
but for now, take this bottle of
fruity wine, and the image i have of you,
driving us to go fishing, where you’ll
cast the line for me, and the way
you look in the sunlight makes me
believe in second chances
Dec 2, 2025
Dec 2, 2025 at 7:22 PM UTC
setting the stage in a bright
white bathroom, fluorescents
buzzing buzzing buzzing,
glass crunches under worn boots
mirror glass as confetti,
bloodied knuckles attached to
shaking hands that grip the
edges of the cold sink
say in a voice that sounds
more and more like my fathers,
‘boy, you’re closer to the things
they **** than the things they keep’
had always planned to be a
pallbearer at my own funeral anyway,
already made sure i wouldn’t be buried
as my fathers daughter
so i go to church,
but the door handles burn into
the palms of my hands and my
knees creak to think of kneeling
what do i have to repent for anyway?
the ****** knuckles and last nights *****
still on my breath don’t make me a bad man,
they don’t make me my father
i do not seek absolution,
no penance or hail mary’s
are going to save this soul of mine
i am as a wild flower pushing through
cracked sidewalk, spindly sapling emerging
from the bark of a felled tree,
lived through the man my father was
to remake myself in my own image
and just because i picked out a coffin
in a wood that made me think of
how dark his eyes always were
when he looked at me doesn’t
mean i have to buy the **** thing
Sep 24, 2025
Sep 24, 2025 at 12:58 AM UTC
.1. it is father’s day,
and my dad loves me,
because i am still his
little girl
he sets me up on
his strong shoulders,
and we go walking
around downtown
i stretch small arms up
to pluck a single cherry
blossom, and tuck it behind
his ear
2. it is father’s day,
and i have carefully picked out
a mug from the student store
at my elementary school
i carry it with me
on the hour long car ride
from my mother’s house to
my father’s apartment
he still had that mug the
last time i saw him at 18
years old
3. it is father’s day,
and we are not speaking,
and we are not speaking,
and we are not speaking
i buy no gifts this year,
with my own money or
otherwise, and i tell myself
it doesn’t hurt as much this time
i am very good at lying to myself
4. it is father’s day,
and i text my younger sister
as a joke
i lace up my boots,
shrug on a flannel that
is older than i’ve been alive,
and walk to work
i make no jokes about saving
money on cards or gifts
because it brings me
no comfort now
5. are you home sick
for a place you’ve never been?
that place might be in the
circle of my father’s arms,
staying up too late together and
eating dinner as the sun rises
that place might be me in
a dress, my hair long and
tied back in braids, nodding and
smiling when my father calls
me his little girl
6. are you home sick
for a place you’ve never been?
hard cider and ibuprofen curdles
in my belly as i examine the face
in the mirror that is as much mine as
it is a strangers
i note how my father and i
have the same wrists, and swallow that
homesickness for a place that never was
that rises in my throat like burning bile
Jun 26, 2025
Jun 26, 2025 at 10:22 PM UTC
i could chew through the
paw that is caught in
the steel jaws of a
hunter’s trap
but the barbed wire fence
i tried to slink through
has already gored me
and if you’ll just give me
a few more minutes,
wait out on the porch with
your bouquet of daisies,
wilting in the summer heat,
i can get the blood off
these nice wooden floors
the scream that rips from my
throat is choked off by the
biting wire wrapped around
my bloodied muzzle
i’ll crawl on my belly to
your doorstep, knowing that
you’ve left the porch light on
just for me, spilling soft yellow
onto the mangled wreck
of my small body
and we can drive down to
the coast this summer, for real
this time, i’ll even take off work,
and you can put your hand on
my knee like you used to
i don’t quite know when i
gave into that soft animal
beating of my heart, but
i’m trying to make my way
back to you
my claws scrabble against the
hard-packed dirt, and the barbed
wire only squeezes tighter,
unspools intestines that steam
in the cool night air
tongue lolling as much as it can,
breaths coming fast and painful,
i think of your hands on my face,
carding through my soft fur
and do you think they’ll pick the
daisies and forget me nots that
grow under where my thrashing body
stilled, watered by my red, red blood?
or will i still be poison to some,
like i was when there was still
breath in my lungs?
May 4, 2025
May 4, 2025 at 1:16 AM UTC
man cast in the role of
former neglected shelter dog
that just wants to exist
in the same space that you do,
lean into the soft palm
of your hand when you
cup his cheek
man cast in the role of
darling bardling, dressed
in bright colors, lute in hand,
plays until his fingers bleed
and bows with the strings
stained red, again and again
man cast in the role of
cowboy, once an outlaw,
now just wants a rocking chair
on a front porch next to yours,
twists forget me nots into
your flowing hair, and his ***
knee hurts when it rains, but
that’s okay
man cast in the roll of
pirate, married to the swell
of ocean waves against the
sides of a weather-beaten ship,
*** in his flask and sea salt
wound into long beard and longer hair,
jolly roger flapping proudly in the wind
man cast in the role of
court jester, lover, clown,
once a fool always a fool,
for the *** and the ***** and that
cheap beer that makes him think
of you
won’t ask what you two are
when your hands brush just so,
but will smile to himself and take
a pull from the bottle in the
same place your lips once touched
Apr 10, 2025
Apr 10, 2025 at 9:37 PM UTC
1..
we make plans to meet
for coffee, and i show up early,
not quite knowing who it is
that i’m looking for
i don’t recognize her,
when she walks in the door,
twelve years younger than my 27,
but she knows me right away
i don’t mention the leather jacket
over the large sweater, surely impractical
for the summer heat, but we both
know what she’s still hiding,
and will continue to do so
for the next three years
we both order something iced and
a little too sweet, and it worries me
when she refuses the blueberry scone i
get for us to share
this won’t end for another four years, and i
almost tell her about the therapist we go to,
that actually sees, listens, and helps, that would
have walked me to the restaurant if i had asked
but that’s not my place, and she isn’t ready
to hear that yet, so i smile and thank her
when she compliments the tattoos
on both of my arms
she knows i’m working to hide something, too,
doesn’t ask if i ever miss it, can tell i do,
when it’s darker than i know how to
handle on my own
i tell her i like the purple hair, and she
says the gray starting to pepper my sideburns
is something she thought she’d never see
when looking in the mirror
we hug when she has to leave,
i say i never hated her,
and she says she knows
2..
we make plans to meet
for coffee, and both show
up early this time
he is eleven years younger than
my 27, barely a month shy of
relearning how to live, and not
just as a boy
he wants to know how long
we’ve been on testosterone, when
we got top surgery, and excitedly points
out the adam’s apple that thickened vocal
cords produced when our voice dropped
i order us the same drinks again,
and feel no small amount of relief
when he accepts the blueberry scone,
even if he only eats half
there are things i want to ask,
that i know he won’t answer,
and reassurances i want to give that
will only sound like platitudes to the
me that is still a teenager
i walk him out,
this time around, and almost
ask if he’s taking the same bus
that i am
we hug again, and i hold
him a little bit longer,
knowing it’s needed at that
point in our life
he steps back to get a better look
at me, in my short-sleeved work shirt
and shorts to show off the tattoos on
both of my knees, asks,
“are you, are we, happy?”
grinning, crooked, chipped teeth and all,
i tell him, “we are. we’re happy”
he grins back, says, “good,”
and waves before turning to
walk away
watching him, i notice that we’re
wearing the same boots, and
realize that she was, too
Mar 1, 2025
Mar 1, 2025 at 10:25 PM UTC
i bring a flannel to the
bathroom with me for
after my shower
no sports bra,
no binder,
no tee shirt
just fabric, soft from
years of wear, against
the scar that stretches,
unbroken, from armpit
to armpit
i watch myself in the
mirror, hairy stomach and
chest briefly on display,
pull the clover pendant out
to rest against the front
of the flannel, right over where
my scar is thickest in the middle
of my flat chest
i take the time to marvel at
how i get to wake up a man
every day, for the rest of
my life, because that is
what i chose
this is my one and only
most precious life, and i spent
far too long denying myself the
joy of my queerness and transness
why should i do that now?
why should i give into the misery that
is being pushed upon people like me,
when i get to watch the sunrise as i
walk to work? when my anniversaries of
top surgery and testosterone were only
one day apart last month? when i get to be an uncle?
when my mother calls me her son and
means it?
i am bathed in that early morning sun,
awash in so many rainbow hues,
no longer burning the candle at both ends
i will not be a statistic,
i will not be a martyr,
i will not be changed or silenced
and hell, wanting to die gets old,
after a little while
so i am going to grow up,
and i am going to grow old,
i am carving out a life for myself
that is worth living,
and holding onto that with
both of my hands
Feb 6, 2025
Feb 6, 2025 at 8:22 PM UTC