He awoke and found himself
inside the body of another.
Safe in the darkness
gentle amniotic arms held him whilst muffled voices dictate his fate
“You’re having a girl” they exclaimed,
and he lay, wondering what this meant.  

He awoke and found himself  
inside the words of another.  
Inside the “brother” he never was, rather than never had  
and the “boy”  that scuffed his knees in adventure.  

He awoke and found himself
“a pretty girl”, “a princess”, “just like her mother”
so he closed his eyes and dreamt of another.
A world of train-sets and barber shops,
birthday candle wishes to replace long, curly locks

he awoke, and found himself floating
in space
his face, unrecognisable in the mirror.  
His chest seemed to grow branches  
as if by night the doctors that had pulled him from her womb
had suddenly discovered his secret.  

They grew like thorns until they were all he could see.
Those and the other boys, s h a t t e r i n g jigsaw piece body parts
every time he looked at them.  
He wondered why when their voices deepened, it was called a voice  
break and not a gift.  
A broken larynx. A birthday present lost in the post,
instead he unwrapped their super glued puzzle pieces,
piling them onto his plate
if you eat your vegetables, you’ll grow up to be a man.

“You’re having a girl”, more like “You can pass go but you will never collect 200 dollars”.
“You’re having a girl”, more like “earthquakes will erupt inside your mind every time you hear the words
“She”, “Her”, “Sister”
“You’re having a girl”, but he was  

“He”, “His”, “Mister”.

And when he cut his hair, and found himself  
in the arms of over-sized t-shirts and grown out leg hair,
they would say
“you look like a boy”, as if they expected him to protest in offence
but his heart feels as warm as the breeze that blows through thornless branches of trees  
and he wants to say thank you.  
He wants to say that the words  
“You look like a boy” manage to stitch up his jigsaw piece body parts,
for these are the words that cut through his mothers dresses and threw away the thread
these, are the words that in time would cause his voice to break;
remind him that he is not broken
and bury his girlhood beneath his bed.

tangled emotions struggle to unwind
unconscious desires surface unrefined
going into the future blind
not knowing what kind of trouble I'll find

feeling the G force at every turn
striving to savor and to learn
praying for calm and contentment to return
hoping from the turbulence will emerge a pattern

new dreams bring the cauldron to a rolling boil
simmering ideas rise and uncoil
fighting fatigue, returning to the toil
planting good intent in the newly turned soil

surrender everything to Him and move on
find forward momentum on the path to be drawn
connect and grow, live life with èlan
face every moment like a new dawn

Pathetic humans that we are
To sell God’s kingdom for a car
Swapping Nature’s priceless joys
For ****** five-cent plastic toys

Our virtues are but very few
Much misery we wield
And in our craving for the new
A sorry pact’s been sealed

We think ourselves enlightened
In fact it’s a delusion
We race along hope’s yellow brick road
But spy not its conclusion

© Diana Korchien 2013

my bare feet and the nose-crinkling tickling of sand-
a contradictory image,
for I was taught to never run with scissors,
your image a rusted blade in my femoral.

my heartbeat and the blithe tide have flirted in a far less than parallel existence,
heels rotting, feet grinding down to the ankle-bones
in the softest fashion,
like a dying rose in vase
in a cubicle too small.

I've inhaled these beaches before.
white dresses have lit up the July wind like lavender candles,
sunsets and barking labs scalping distant couches,
turning my broken back into your expendable canvas.

your birthday has escaped me,
and the tattoo on the back of your sandpaper neck is a static television frequency.

the rip-tide is welcoming me for dinner, filling my lungs with my favorite dessert.