When I was small we had
faerie chimes
that filtered sadness through my window.
If my fingers,
then small and unskilled,
could catch the specks of dust
that drifted around my
blossoms,
then maybe I could make that sound.
When I walked down hallways,
my sisters would giggle.
In my home among homes,
sitting beneath nimbus and cumulus,
I could hear them chortle at
my mismatched body,
a sylph without a
breeze.
I am grown,
and scents follow me,
ravens peck at my window.
But I know the outside
cannot see the wings that calm
my skirting breath,
they cannot hear the chiming
of my sad, sad soul.

SUFFERING was a word invented by a man
with a silver spoon and fork,
with a nice brain that matched their junk
a brain that didn’t whisper i love yous in the middle of the night
when you’re trying just to get some sleep
but your mind
echoes self-love where you can’t get it.

and that word is whispered to the back of my head
to the front of my chest
inbetween my thighs like maybe you’ll make a difference
if you express sympathy for a body,
just a body that oozes what you would call
misfortune.

but i am not your headline;
people like me are not your story,
you put me down with black ink on white paper
and your dichotomy echoes the insincerity
in your sincerity
the way you cannot understand that when you put
transgender or gay you expect it to mean tragedy.

i am not your tragedy
**** do not chain me to a stereotype
i am not “your trans* friend,”
a unicorn that has been trapped and ****** of silver blood,
my ****** chains me to a history of hostility and scars
that i have risen ABOVE.

i see your face fall when i say my body is beautiful,
and hear your hitching breath when i tell you i am just like you
a being with a body who is trying to see
the glory in mismatched parts
imperfect scars
and i am not SUFFERING
i grabbed the word from the dictionary
and shoved it down your throat.

we’re hatred
in this warm, unhappy way
that seeps down our thighs like a child
******* his pants but we can’t see what they say:
when they say “look up at the moon” our eyes dance among stars.

we pretend
that the moon stands for
the somethings that are wrong in our lives,
like how bald babies don’t look our ways because we will
never ever ever be pretty, white daisies arching under the sun.

our cheeks
rustle among grass in this
calm way that says take my hand, and
spare yourself the indecency of imagining a love life
where they peel you apart like a ripe banana, discover diamonds

in your rind.

For sale: One body. Used. Glitters in the sunlight but only when wearing illfitting, ugly, boring clothes.

Hair, though not much of it, but too much for the company of wolves. Fuzzy. Generic. Drips a lot after hot showers. Not black. Not brown. Not red. Maybe blonde.

Lots of freckles in shapes that may or may not be cult objects.

Lips bitten, but not as much as nails. We regret to inform you that this model has the ugliest hands you’ve ever seen. Skin breaking up, peeling like sunburn at fingertips. Red. Cramp in the cold and every other climate. Small. Fit into spaces they can’t get out of. Inky. Spew words.

Scrawny, disproportionate legs and arms. Knobby knees. Stuck-in toes. Crooked from hips-down. Bowlegged. Beastlike.

Woman hips. ******* that used to be perfect until nineteen. Now they’re just a bit useless. We apologize for the inconvenience.

******. Not a ******. Clawed. Friction burn. Too much hair. Too little hair. More hair down there than there is on one side of the head. Razor marks. Blisters, sometimes. Lots and lots of blisters.

Thighs are good for holding, not much else.

Weak. Scrawny. The ******* meal you’ll ever have.

Gateway eyes that tell you she’d rather be anything but a body with a ****** and **** and lips and all of the above.

And we make grand gestures like it matters,
Like we are more than matter and if I tell you the same
Cockneyed stories over and over this time in the morning you will
Stay. Or the distance will become a nonexistent blimp on the surface of our
Own existence, I will exist within you, if I make grand gestures:
This will matter.
The overbearing distance between our physical bodies but our celestial minds.
I want to be real. I want to be real with you, be real with me,
Tell me the truth but tell me lies too,
Make me regret telling everyone who asks that the key is communication.
Is it communication or looking at someone
Someone bleeding on the ground, and still finding them fuckable,
As if Fuckability matters, as if Fuckability for fools is more than a need to
Touch base and touch **** like the world depends on it,
Like it is December Twenty First and the world is ending,
And we are millions of miles apart, and millions of words apart,
And nothing I have said yet can convince you or me that we are people who matter.
We matter to each other and it is scary to not know the confines of someone’s mind, wherein I float, wherein I remain stagnant as an F word,
Wherein I play charades to convince myself I am more than the men in my life.
I am Goodnight and Good Morning and please send me one more shred of light to hang on to, please give me the time of day, please let our states become one mass of existence, please make me Matter.