Two Works

College-Aged Cassanova 

Do you want to get Taco Bell with me?
without you Baja Blast is bitter,
Nachos Bel Grande is bland,
Diablo sauce is boring.

You are the sweetest and
spiciest on all menus,
its no secret to me.

I want to see you
lips red with hot sauce
eyes closed in my pleasure
burrito in one hand
my fingers in the other.

We will laugh
at the queso stuck to your cheek,
making you mine.

My worship of you knows no bounds
but my wallet
is only mortal.

So I ask you again
my love,
Do you want to get Taco Bell with me?

 

(Content Warnings: Gender dysphoria and Transphobia)

To all my cisgendered family

You can wake up at 6 years old
know who you are
and what you want to be.

I can spend decades of my life
trying to explain what I feel
not knowing the word
genderfluid.

Cisgender family don’t understand
with their solid states
they can’t see that identity
is valid even when it isn’t
solid and single pointed.
Straight family can’t see
I contain multitudes
male and female and a
million points in between.

My family can’t feel
the things writhing
beneath my skin
and inside my mind.

Cisgender people can’t hear
that I hate my skin imperfectly stretched
but love the organs under it.
That I dislike my chest for being there and
for not being there enough.
Dislike for my hair being short and styled
as any man’s would be
yet still being a woman’s hair.
That I love my voice
able to scream soprano and roar baritone.
That I like my face with its square and sharpness
but hate its long lashes and lack of stubble.

My body brings strife
but it’s not what I curse.
I can’t curse it
because it’s all I have got to work with.

I curse those people
who do not understand told me
genderfluid doesn’t exist
because gender is solid.

I curse my own family who told me
I have to be a girl so shut up
that they weren’t going to ask me
my pronouns because they knew me
as she/her.

I curse that my family can’t know
unless I tell them.

I curse that I have to cut apart my pain
and serve it in small pieces
to even hope for understanding.

I curse that everyone else get to be
understood perfectly without even trying,
and I have to show credentials
to prove my validity.