The Reflection
A shine pops off
it’s random, but in the same place every time
how is that
it ceases silently
when I want it to
it can never last forever
A shine pops off
it’s random, but in the same place every time
how is that
it ceases silently
when I want it to
it can never last forever
Practicing makeup behind closed doors,
the one night a week I give myself
to slip fully into
my feminine identity.
Longing for a world
where it’s safe to be me,
two souls in one body,
home to two genders,
more than what you see.
Missing the nail polish on my fingertips,
happiness in a bottle
sacrificed to fear, family obligation,
professionalism,
societal expectations,
gender norms.
Misgendered in most situations,
in every restaurant,
by family,
friends,
acquaintances.
Grateful for the precious pockets of fellowship
in my life
where I can breathe
and be seen
and present any way I want to.
Closed off
from so much of my life
because I’m waiting
for I don’t even know what.
Maybe things that will never come.
Maybe things that will never change.
Because it feels like I will never find, create, or shape a world
where it is
safe to be me.
When I put on glasses for the first time I realized that you were supposed to be able to see facial expressions on TV.
I had spent all of these years thinking I was bad at recognizing actors in films,
When I was just bad at seeing.
When I entered a healthy relationship for the first time I realized that it wasn’t supposed to feel like you were always holding your breath.
I had spent all of these years thinking that I was “too much”
When I was just choosing people who were never enough.
Communicate?
How?
Words are insufficient half the time I’m
Holding dripping emotion you can never
Touch, up goes the ante….
But at least I try
Your silence screams,
The resonating bell that never fades out
A physical thing tearing into my head
My head, your mouth
Like a cup nest empty and brittle
Lead the way: I don’t know how
But you don’t recognise your own strength
Wrapped and running,
Stand and sing –
Words are insufficient
But silence is unbearable
A yearning to fill it, fill you, fill me
Enfolded, emboldened, enclosing
Kiss and breathe
Your fingers desperate clutch
At what you can’t keep
I’m clinging to your shoe
Don’t, don’t
But do
Just talk to me
Say anything
You are summer
Sweat and grass stains
Bare feet belly laughing
My winter heart
Thaws and re-hardens
Thaws and re-hardens
The outline of the trees in the sky
Through my dirty windshield
I sit and my thoughts soar
Through an open field
Of flowers in my mind
Some alive, some dead
The birds can’t keep up
And neither can I
I drown in my thoughts
Like suffocating under a waterfall
Man, I wish I was asleep in my bed
I’ve tasted salvation at the edge of cliff faces,
At the feet of a corvid.
I’ve known Grace by her wingtips,
And light emerged not from her alone,
But sprouted from the soil, glimmered in the air.
At this place, I am no lord or king,
I’ve shed the embellished skin,
And find no gold beneath as I’d long expected;
Naught but scales and petals here.
I have hastily bloomed in a bed of gardens,
But will not wilt before her.
I’m finding it
hard to write
this poem
on my phone
as the plane
flops around
like a freshly
caught fish
on the bottom
of a shallow
bass boat,
tossed there
while the line
is re-baited,
just waiting
for the
fisherman to
come end things
with his knife.
