I say your name
and my heart becomes
a little kid
pulling me towards the
candy aisle with both hands
ignoring my protests
of no time
no money
and it’s been too long
since I last saw a dentist
so who knows if my teeth
could handle your sweetness

I say your name
and we’re just two
kids in love again
stopping in the middle
of an empty street
to kiss open mouthed
like you are an oxygen tank
and I’m at the bottom
of the deepest ocean

I say your name
and I’m looking at
engagement rings
while calculating costs
and telling the clerk
behind the counter
that I plan to marry you

I say your name
and it is like water
after a hundred year drought
sweet and light
on my tongue

I say your name
I say your name
I say your name
and it’s like coming home

sometimes i think of the girl i used to be
in terms of fish hooks
all these little barbs stuck in my skin
in terms of needles
an arm covered in scars
and two twin lines that i have been
waiting for more than half my life

but those are the parts of this
body that i can change
from the outside in
each one making this she
that still resides inside of me
even more of a ghost

and i can feel her in the dead of night
she comes to me and
runs cold fingers through my short hair
and it’s like she’s thanking me

for finally burying the girl corpse
that i have been carrying on my back
like a ghost that refuses to be exorcised

but sometimes i still feel so haunted
by what this girl self could have been
and she is there again
speaking in a voice that mine hasn’t sounded
like for months and months
and she says it’s okay
because i made it
and that’s all she ever wanted

i like to think that
i know you like the
back of my hand
but the only thing
the peaks and valleys of
your body do for me
is make me nauseous

this is a landscape
that my hands cannot
explore without shaking
fingers curling into useless fists
that only know how to
try and pummel this soft flesh
into a shape it was not
originally born in to

and there are no more
trees here now
because the force of my
hatred towards this body
burned them all down
because this body is not
a temple or a church i
feel able to worship in
since this is not a god
i want to believe in

because believing in a god
that would zip me into this skin
and just watch as i try
to cut my way out of it
for nine years
six of those being with sharp edges
and jagged nails
and purple hollows under my eyes
there is no beauty in that

it is hard to write beautiful
poetry about a body i
spent more time hating and
feeling trapped in than i did
knowing how to live happily

but my god i am trying
i promise that i am
even if my hands shake
while trying to hold
the her that i used to be
close

these days i am stuck
choosing between binding and breathing
because nobody knew to tell me
that wearing this less severe corset
for more than eight hours at a time
could turn my ribs into a steel trap
around my lungs and my skin
would be able to count the seconds
that ticked by as that fabric
rubbed tighter and tighter
against my body

but it was worth it
at least for the first few minutes
until my breath became trapped
inside my body somewhere
between my lungs and my
nose and my mouth
and climbing three flights of stairs
from one class to the next felt
like running a marathon
with my legs tied together

and standing naked from the
waist up in the women’s bathroom
hating every second of wrestling the
binder off of sweat-soaked skin
made me want to reach into
my body through sheer force of will
and years of hatred
and scoop out the fat that made
up my *******

and i am accustomed to this
the want to remove the parts
of me that make people
tie me to the words
of she
and girl
and her
and mother
and sister
and woman
and and and
those things that i am not
those things that i never was
those things that i never will be

wanting to cut off
the parts of me that continue to lock
me into the involuntary box of
the female gender
makes me feel like a freak
and a monster
and a bad person for not loving
the body that a god with a penchant
for sick jokes stuck me in

but some days the dysphoria
makes it tempting to choose
binding over breathing
because even though my tolerance
for doing so is only about an hour
at this point isn’t an hour of relief
better than nothing at all

She saw this moment as the end
The pills were sticky from sweaty palms,
gripped tight in shaking hands
And the numbers,
the milligrams,
ticked slowly upwards,
clearing 5,000 but staying short of 10,000

This was the end,
her end,
orchestrated and carried out alone
This was cold toes curling into ugly carpet that hid years
of shed blood and tears
This was swallowing one last pill and feeling panic bloom
at the realization of the close

The heaviness of her body,
eyes unable to stay open,
head spinning down onto the pillow

This was the end,
this was her end
A young body pulled into nothingness
A young girl,
long dead,
finally letting go of her corpse

She saw this moment as the end

And his eyes flew open,
guts roiling and gasping into a state of being
laid dormant
for far too long

you killed all the
nice queer people and all
that’s left is me
with my shaking hands
and cracking voice
and fear giving way to anger
and a tiredness that nestles
ever deeper into my bones

and monday the 20th is
the 18th transgender day of remembrance
where the community mourns all
of its trans and nonbinary and genderfluid
and gender nonconforming siblings
because they were killed for
daring to be themselves
in a world that would rather
bury their dead sons and daughters
than have a child who changed their
name and gender marker
to the right ones

because being trans and queer
in a trump america
is an act of deviance and rebellion
where i could get beaten up for
using the mens room
and it would be my fault
because i am other
i am a freak
they do not understand me
and therefore that makes
me the enemy

but you have sat next to me
on the bus
in the movie theater
in the bathroom stall next to mine
while my anxiety mounted as
i waited for the bathroom to clear
out so i could leave safely
and i know when you look at me
you do not know what box
to force me into

and i want to know
you owe us all the answer
of how many more of our
siblings have to die before
you realize that we are people too
i am as human as you are
my correct hormones are just store-bought
and i had to claw my way into
the words of brother
and son
and nephew
and grandson
and boy boy boy
and male male male

but you have killed all the
nice queer people and all
you have left is me
and i am making my anger
into a louder voice
that will never be silenced
because you can cut out
my tongue and you can
take away my basic human rights
and you can even **** me

but the truth is that you will
always be more afraid of me
than i am of you
because while you ****
what you do not understand
i embrace it

Stimming/Self-stimulation: most common in individuals on the autism spectrum, but also done by those with anxiety, stimming (stim for short) is the act of engaging in repetitive motions--such as rocking, flapping hands, making noises, and touching or chewing on things--as a way to express emotions or self-soothe.

when anxiety has me ensnared
in its clawed and crooked grip
sunk deep into my bones
my spine becomes a rocking chair
pretzel-ing itself into a shape
that knows how to rid this body
of the gritted teeth and shaking hands
and tears that are a near-constant
and burning promise

and this movement
the motion of moving back and forth
planted firmly on mattress
or couch
or carpet
or hardwood floor
it grounds me and soothes the ache
of a mind in turmoil
in a way that unzipping
my flesh never did

but the motion that is heavily
put into practice while standing
is a noticeable thing
that is too calculated and controlled
to be played off as
intoxication or any other substance
to quite the roiling of my thoughts

and when my little sister
looks at me next to her
with fluttering hands and adding new
indents of my teeth into my bottom lip
and asks me why i am rocking
i do not know how to explain the
motion to her in a way that she will
understand and so i make myself stop
by forcing the movement into my leg

and many summers ago
when i sat on the mattress in
the livingroom of my father’s apartment
that was also my bedroom
and began to rock back and forth
to quell the rising tide of anxiety
from the anger in his eyes and voice
and he snapped at me to
“stop being such an aspie ****”
my only response was to
rock faster and bite back the
tears that threatened to
drown the both of us