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December 11, 2020 We are playing. A little girl is running ahead of me. I am running ahead of me. I remember hating that dress I’m in. The puffy sleeves were itchy and tight. At least I managed to pull my hair loose so it tumbled as I ran. “Wait,” I called. The voice wasn’t mine. “Wait for me.” And I did. Little me stopped. She smiled with big and baby teeth, “Run faster.” “What are we playing?” “We’re not playing, we’re running.” “I hate running.” “No, I hate running. You love it.” I looked down at this body. It wore a rusty red jacket. One very long white hood string was stuck to the fabric of the sleeve. The other me started to pout, “This was your game.” “So it is a game?” “It’s a race.” Her smile was so bright I blinked back small tears. I don’t remember ever smiling like that. Little me turned on bent legs poised and ready to start. There was nothing before her, just shadows deep and uninviting. “I don’t think we should go that way.” My nerves broke into ribbons and clawed their way up my body wrapping me in fear. “But that’s where the finish line is, the end. Your end. And then mine.” She peaked over her shoulder at whoever I was. She looked around, eyebrows knitting together as confusion flooded her expression. “Where did you go?” She called out. I called out. “What do you mean? I’m still here.” This body reached out. “You fell behind already?” She, I, asked as if she, I, could see this new body. Yet she looked around wildly. “I haven’t moved at all!” “Me neither.” She pouted. “You heard me! You know I’m here.” “That’s not the same thing at all.” “I don’t get it. Just knock it off.” I flung an arm out to her. Yet just as I would have smacked her arm, she glitched, jumping ten feet back. I noticed then, the background that started to fade, the park. We were in the park. Soon it would be gone. Soon it all would be gone. “Don’t go.” Did I say that to little me or the rest of the world? “I don’t want you to go again.” Again? “You went first. Why would you leave first?” She was going to cry. Her, my, grey eyes were glassy all over. She spun faster. “Don’t be upset with me.” She looked right at me then, right into these new eyes. “You wanna go but don’t want me to cry?” “I don’t wanna go. I never wanna go.” “But you went.” These eyes burned. They clouded and stormed. Over their brims, I rained. “I’ve been here this whole time.” I felt then, the greater me, that this body didn’t understand. It didn’t know if this whole time meant the dream or the reality. Dream, that's what this is. I thought about the jacket and the fading park. I thought about all the other times I had seen myself like this, so little. And I remembered. These new eyes of mine were His, Oliver’s. “Neither of us are here. There is no here.” I, he, said. In a blink, he was there in front of me. The rusty red sweater hung loosely around his tiny body. I was back in my own eyes. Staring straight into his. Those eyes were more than blue. They were the sky. Clouded yet shining, his eyes contained Heaven. “Is that where you are?” “Where would I be?” “Heaven. You should be in Heaven.” “But I’m right here.” From within him, I felt more confusion than I could see. In fact, the tears that had spilled were dry. His freckled cheeks unmarred by water tracks. His skin was porcelain. A doll just for me to play with. “You’re not you. Not really. Not like you were.” “How am I not me when I’m right here?” “This isn’t real. You are gone” “Where did I go?” “Paradise?” “I’m in you.” “In my dream.” Was he always in my mind? Floating on a life raft, I pictured Oliver overtaken by a wrathful sea. “This is the only place we have left.” “That’s not true. I see you in a lot of things” “It’s the only place I can see you back.” If I leave, he’ll be here alone. “And you look just the same.” I tugged at the elastic around my dress sleeves, they were chafing these little arms. He was right, even in my own body I still looked like I was eight years old. As if the last ten years didn’t happen. Did they? “This is how I’ll always look,” I told him. “This was the last time I was me.” “You’re still you. Out there. Much bigger than I will ever be.” “I want to be big with you, but I’ll settle for being small all the same.” “You can’t come back. I can’t go forward.” “Why would you want to?” I should have given that more thought. “Why would I want to be with you out there? Big. With my family.” I opened my mouth to apologize but any sound vacuumed out of me. Out of everything. Oliver’s lips moved and I couldn’t hear him. Even here I could lose him. He walked over to me then, took my hands in his. My ears popped. “I said: you don’t understand. You’re not gone.” “Not in the same way, no. But I am gone.” “You can go back there. To the outside of this. You can see your family and mine.” He didn’t sound angry, only urgent. As if he knew just how lost I really was. But of course he does. This is my world after all. My mouth wobbles with the weight of what I want. “What do you want?” He asks, knowing already. “I want to see you.” I am small. So incredibly small. “You see me now. You’ll see me again.” “But it’s not the same is it? Seeing you here versus wherever you might actually be” “I don’t know.” Right. “You’re not you.” “I’m the me you know. I’m the me you have. Do you want me to go?” His bottom lip quivered. I’d seen this face so many times growing up with him. It was his face. Real as I could make it. Even if it just mirrored mine. “Please don’t go.” “Let’s play a new game.” He squeezed my hand tighter, anchoring me as the world began to blur and warp. “What kind of game?” I looked around watching the kaleidoscope form and dissolve around us. Colors, so many colors. “How about a puzzle?” The picture around us solidified. Brown wood and white snow and green trees and yellow straw maybe? I knew this place. Dread and horror rose in me as the Archery range became fully realized. Oliver still held my hand. “I don’t want to be here. You definitely shouldn’t be here. Take us back.” I pulled him closer, begging. Our clasped hands came up to my face and I could smell chocolate on him. There, under his fingernails. Just where the police found it. My eyes shot up to find sweet brown smudges around his mouth too. “Stop, stop!” I cried. “Why would you bring us here?” “I didn’t bring us here. You did.” Falling to my knees, I sobbed. The background grew, distorting proper proportions. Everything was so big, too big. We were too small. “Tell me,” He continued. “what do you know?” “You were killed here.” “By who?” “I don’t know!” “Think.” “Do I— do—” I started to sputter, stutter and start my question over, “Do I know?’ “You must.” The world warped again, spinning soaked and dripping color. We became the center of the puzzle. Misshapen images fit in together like shards of stained glass. I saw a sliver of a candy shop, a fragment of my childhood bedroom. There off to the side was Oliver’s bedroom, his backyard. I saw our preschool playground, the elementary school classroom. I saw pieces of our lives, the places we overlapped. Diner, corner store, grocery market, playground, arcade, movie theatre, laundry mat. Tiny images of the whole town. We went everywhere together. “What do you see?” One last question. I could feel myself waking up. “I see everything.” But, I didn’t really. Not until the last moment. Tucked into all of these places was a shadow. One that dwarfed the darkness at the end of our foot race. This shadow was just slim enough to miss. It was tucked in corners and behind many other things. It had its own shape and life. Not a shadow at all, but a silhouette. Watching us. In every place we went.

I've been left a woman wanting Waiting by the door I've been left a woman wanton Crying on the floor See men will take and take and take Always needing more I never sought to be a woman You made that choice before I knew you saw me as something You could still stand To leave and sing Some merry song of yore I don't recall when I was asked To take that gauntlet up To bear the cross of womanhood With each and ev’ry sup Woe betide any beast who would Get walled up inside A labyrinthian cavern o ne'er enough The holy sepulcher of a man's mind See the Sheela Na Gig in the buff Sitting crouched on its gate outside Looking so tired and so sore From gaping itself wide To live inside the apple of another person's eye Is to rot and wither at the core And with each passing glance sigh

we all have a task we are working on i cannot remember what this pool is not a pool anymore and you, my love are standing over a sink hands rivered in diluted blood you are working on something and i can see it opening cuts on your fingers i tell you to stop to bandage your wounds you don’t want to but do and i try to choose the soap that will sting the least to clean you we sit in the sunroom on the couch like the porches we grew up in then i see only your face and it is covered in black ants you have fallen into a crack in the couch disturbing an ant colony down there i try to get you out so i can get them off but you are stunned and it takes a while i leaned over to whisper into your ear and found you had crossed the pond while my back was turned and stood on higher ground where you said you could see until tomorrow and you tried to tell me but the wind carried it away and besides you were still standing beside me to my left or to my right for a time i stood on grief mountain which i dragged into your soft little bed then left on some roadside in iowa or i dropped it when the bee stung me and my face swelled with the moon from where you stand you can finally see that my eyes are hazel not brown and i will always look at you as if i am lying on the ground gazing up at you in the sycamore leaves sun shining through making everything translucent you were so beautiful when i saw you last you were not always beautiful to me and then you were let it be autumn forever let me sit in the hot sun tempered by the shaded breeze let me tend fires in the evenings let my hair smell of oak smoke that i can’t wash out let our paths cross and cross and cross i want to be buried beneath you let my knife slice the squash i will roast the seeds and save some to plant in the spring with the chestnuts that i will sprout in the fridge yes i can be like this but i don’t want to be buried i wanted to dig a grave but it is too late the corpses have already been made i am remembering to be gentle i am carefully plucking away the rotted roots composting them making room for new growth for Asti for greeting everything and everyone, even change, gently and with excitement, a heart full, and a wagging tail

Nickelette’s friend, Dr. Hairball, can perform 30 top surgeries in 1 day and he works 9 days a week. How many tops can he create over the course of his career? Nickelette’s newest pair of shoes would put her feet at a 169 degree angle to the ground. If her feet are 18 inches long, how much taller would these make her if she could stand in them? Nickelette knows a guy who got into a clinic at the beginning of high school. If he finishes a vial of testosterone every 2 weeks, how many vials will he finish before everyone who had to wait for informed consent gets to start hormones? Nickelette has gotten into the Digital Transgender Archive. If she spends 16 hours on the site a day, how soon will she be able to get into a gilded age photo and make out with a male impersonator? Nickelette wants to make a dozen cupcakes with frosting that is 69% cum. Given all necessary variables, would it be faster for her to produce the cum herself or go down the block to the adult video store and wring out the mop?

When air drenches pores and sticks to skin, Soil waits for tender palms— abuelitas, we plant mango seeds back home. giving life in fingertips and prayer whispers. Land lots taken for generations. We cycle layers of soil to keep up Before, investments made by ancestors. with dying breaths— we dig deeper and wait patiently for restoration. Pitted seeds are stubborn as We cut husks carefully and find offerings, jaded knives slip in sticky hands. for growth. If we tend our tree, this will last us a lifetime. Then, one day, its canopy will protect us. Small white flowers inhale sunshine as each summer becomes hotter than before. to exchange our efforts for blossoms. Our children will feast on the fruit it bears. We’ll cut them in X’s and let nectar with peppers and sea salt. stream down chins and onto t-shirts. In ten years, it will birth these fruits we seek. Until then, we must dowse ourselves. The sea breeze will rustle more leaves in patience and give ourselves up to the land. as our mango tree grows with us. We lay under shade and pray into its roots— we come back to traditions in visions with every inhale, it becomes easier to breathe. and heal the wounds of our history. We thank the tree for its gifts. and rebuild in nourishment.

I. Genesis, 1:27: “And God created man in His own image, in the image of God he created He him; male and female created He them.” II. I bought my first chest binder about four years ago. I ordered it to my friend’s address, as her mom and my art teacher were the only two adults I had told about my growing awareness that I wasn’t a girl. Most days I’d wear a tight sports bra, layering backwards camisoles over top (I had read online somewhere that this worked, but looking back I’m not so sure). I felt the need to space out when I wore the binder, afraid my parents or classmates would notice and start asking questions I wasn’t ready to answer. On the days I did wear it, the tightening against my ribs served as a welcome celebration. By the time my senior prom came around, it joined me under my rented tux. My hair was short and bleach-blonde, brushing the tops of my ears. My eyelids were smeared with bright green eyeshadow. My mother’s turquoise earrings dangled beneath a fresh industrial bar. It was the most happy I’d ever felt in my own skin, and under the blaring of the music and the compression on my chest, I could hear my ribs singing along with delight. III. Despite most translations using he/him pronouns, God is not a man. God is unknowable, ununderstandable, unnamable. I am Who I am, YHWH, Adonai, HaShem. A being of both infinite names and no names. A form both beyond existence and intensely personal. If the first human was made in God’s image, then the first human is more than just man. male and female: maleandfemale adam and eve: adamandeve Them IV. Now, I wear my binder everytime I leave home, forever chasing after that once-attained euphoria. Any well-informed trans individual will know that you’re only supposed to wear a chest binder for about eight hours, but I don’t really listen to that anymore. The crushing embrace against my chest has become more of a comfort than anything else. A sharp pain has started forming along my collarbone, like knives and needles stabbing through the muscle and into the bone, leaving phantom scars only I can see. I lay on my stomach, palm placed over the pain, every breath moving the needles into my lungs until the scars heal over into sleep. V. Genesis, 2:21-24: “And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall into the man, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and he closed up the place with flesh instead. And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from the man, made He a woman, and brought her unto the man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh.” VI. Dotted on my left side, just hidden from view, I have a mole. It’s oval in shape, and if I wrap my arms around myself, the tip of my index finger fits perfectly on top of it. Pressing against my skin, past the fat deposits and non-existant core muscles, I can feel the base of my ribcage. I hold the pressure there, letting my fingerprint carve matching indents into the longest of my ribs. Sometimes, I wish my finger could move through the dark cluster of cells and bloody sinews, removing the crooked and contorted bone. I would cradle my rib in my hands, and pick away the one flesh until we are no longer one: only me, and a hunk of calcium and marrow, and nothing but separation between Them. VII. as they slept, God reached into adamandeve and took a rib even as flesh is replaced, human skin will pucker and scar is the scar small, a spot on the left side just wide enough for a rib to perfectly slip through or deep lines carved into their chest, in the center of the ribs, right below the pectorals a permanent loveletter of that removed and transformed as adamandeve grow into two being: separate but connected VIII. Sometimes, I can see scars on my chest that aren’t there yet. I trace along the non-existent jagged line below bunches and folds of slick skin, letting the mirror show my pastandfuture all wrapped up into one figure. In these moments, my binder holds onto the fresh scent of detergent, unsullied by my body’s buildup of oils and sweat. The needles and knives fade away, little fingers of God finished with their heavenly intervention. My collarbone can breathe again, not weighted or pressed but balanced and connected at the base of my throat. The feeling is phantom, and soon I will have to turn from the mirror to face reality. And yet. Closing my eyes, the flowers of eden bloom around my heart. Even when badly damaged, ribs hold an amazing capacity to grow back.

Thesis Any love poem I write says more about me than who I love. Love Poem Draft Thirty Seven The truest expression of my affection is leaving you the fuck alone. I know I really care because I won’t let you be loved by someone like me; You deserve better than a girl who breaks down these things like romance is a problem to be solved with the right equation. I’ve gone on more than one date with someone I didn’t like. I’ve preferred it. It’s easier to become the person someone else wants know when to smile and when to laugh and keep your back straight and put on a good show. Too many people have seen me and run screaming And unfortunately that isn’t hyperbole. I don’t want to see you run. So I give my heart to those who’ll treat it poorly because I know they’ll treat it poorly and therefore am never surprised. It’s intentionally bad taste. I want to fall in love like in the movies which is to say with a script and no real risk. This is all to say I knew I really liked you the moment I realized your rejection might actually matter to me. To Every Girl I Had A Very Codependent Relationship With In Elementary School I’m sorry about all the times I dreamed about kissing you. When people talk about love as drowning in each other it’s you I think of. I’m not sure I’m capable of that any more or if I want to be. It feels wrong to say that wanting to be so close to another that you slice your palms and mix your blood is “playground love”. All My Role Models Died Alone I’ve seen women like me throughout history. None of them were happy. This Poem Has A Different Name I’d give you love songs If I could; They keep coming out as dirges. Great love should lead to Great art. Isn’t that how it goes? You deserve a masterpiece I’m not capable of creating.

WAR Be confident, cocky, controlling, charismatic, and you’re Her captain. Be negligent, willing, dull, violent, and you’re Her soldier. Be wicked, vicious, a harbinger of death, different, and you’re Her enemy. You’re never the Victim or the Saviour or an Innocent in the eyes of War. To be those would make you Her enemy, Her hatred and fuel, Her survival. But She cares naught for us so why should we feed Her? Why don’t we fight back and leave Her? Why don’t we kill Her with Peace, Their bow everlasting and clear, loving and indiscriminate, War’s bloodshed, War’s weakness? We have the numbers and we can harness Peace’s guiding light, yet we instead morph Their Glory for War’s purposes. Be forgiving, destroyed, depressed, disgusted by Her ways, and you’re weak. Be loving, unrelenting, hopeful, courageous, and you’re wrong. Fight back, win your love for your fellow man, be a prophet of Peace, and you need to be killed, silenced, replaced. We crave War, feed from Her as She does us, a cyclical silencing that we can escape only in death. It doesn’t have to be this way.. War is weak. Let Her die. Let us breathe new life into the lungs She cauterized so long ago, that my ancestors pierced with blades of obsidian in their attempt to feed our hearts to the god they feared, to feed Her. Peace can survive without War. They can live without Her dichotomous rage, but War cannot live without Peace. There is no end to Peace, nor to Their many Children, but War ends. We will survive, and we will not relent until War succumbs to Them. Or we will die trying

after Julie Mehretu, “A Love Supreme” dancing directionless doodles dirty the sidewalk of my chalky childhood masterpieces hazy hues of pastel no never any match against the rain my mind a wasteland of faces that did not stay a ribcage that isn’t mine nerves replacing memories like loose strands of hair a nightmare unwilling to open my eyes glass sweating the perfect opportunity my index cuts through a path from beginning to end my sky cries with me obscuring visuals of sense my reflection a burning city stenciled erasers of loss nerves as black lines nerves anyway nothing left to lose my mind a wasteland wasting supreme love does not live here hair around its neck suffocation suppresses words that aren’t mine my mind a wasteland nerves as black lines stenciled erasers of loss a nightmare unwilling a sky that cries with me nerves as black lines nerves as black lines how did I get here

I know you hide from me But sometimes I wish you stood next to me Wrapped your arms around me I want you near We feel like one I want to be two parts Come together if necessary You’re the color of bravery I think I might love you Sleep in you I feel like a cloud next to you But too light I can’t hold In the distance I know it’s you Closer I’m more aware Of the power you hold And how I wish it was me Who created you. My hands aren’t that steady.

It’s never cold Always dark Or maybe I just don’t look right I’m left to decide how to feel about you The color of sadness Yet I feel no head bow The color of tears Mine have yet to fall I wish to dig deeper I picture you in my brain Swimming with thoughts and ideas and plans some that’ll never surface But wade into what it could’ve been And what it can still be You’re the color of brand new How you shift and pull me into you But you’re vast And hard to understand And somedays I wonder If I am supposed to understand you at all.

misting magpies over as a child, I begged for nicknames mayflies metanyms everything with the flock of mes tried to establish them myself of overlapping pseudonyms I longed to disappear like those rare few called a fog nothing diffused through twice the historical record into dissolved