from “Twenty-Five Thousand Miles of Nerves”

First visit.

I'm here because I want to be left alone

 

Gender Survey:

In order to proceed, I need access to

your body i.e. brain

your life i.e. sex life

your medical history

your stories

 

Second visit.

 

Have I completed a gender survey so I can cope with being a poet

or am I a poet in order to cope with the gender survey

so used to narrating myself

in exchange for fees and care

The glossy floors and the large window

upon arrival I leave

my name and agency at the reception

I want to talk about my complex and people want to describe me as respectable

to line up the words on the table in front of the psychologist

so we can look at them and pretend we’re equal

A gatekeeper may deny access

a sword can burn against the throat

can still be called angel

fear’s throbbing anatomy

the throat artery's defiant disposition 

highlights a sample of beautiful truths

the same obedience as usual

the same hands folded in my lap

 

 

Third visit.

 

Gender Survey:

Describe your social situation

 

Saw a snake in the woods today

winding across the gravel on its stomach 

as if it didn’t hurt

and every obstacle it met on the way

it slid right around

Imagine if my body could help me like that

Fourth visit

 

I cancel

 

I have reconstructed everything

the boy the girl and the autistic one

documented the fatigue and depression

With the diagnosis as a veil a shield I slid through the corridors.

In the middle of puberty, I escaped sexuality 

got out of girl parties and boyhood problems

got out of punishment and ostracism

stopped learning from the group

how women apply makeup to put on a face

The group of girls I tried to belong to

didn’t work out and lost interest

the punishments ricocheted against the mirrors

newly awakened, I cut myself on the shards

without a clear direction or sender

So the girl was kept intact

floated across the school yard, slid through

high school corridors

rape cultures

mostly without a scratch

Women were formed there

I understand now, as protection and strategy

formed groups there

dancing in a circle around activist tote bags

they became women

I did not become a body

The Publisher

 

It needs a more structured wholeness 

 

I want to reside in the hard and permanent

so I construct a suite of poems and a man to live inside

I want to be pinned down securely

to be normalized and become part of the dictionary

assigned a home

to leave

Scenes flow together

public libraries and pride festivals

small town train stations

press photo and description max 50 words

Twenty-five thousand miles of nerves

I choose the reddest one

pull it out through my throat and set it on stage

my life is three minutes long

they say perfect ten

I'm trying to boil

down to my essence

become a concentrate

of my own existence

then it's called politics

 

Tried to throw out my inner baby Jesus with the bath water

but it held firm inside the lines, screaming and screaming

of course I want nothing more than to fish for Christian Democrats

lure with a little hook of poetry

this body is so useful as bait

People came to me to confess

their heteronormative sins, I said

here, eat my body

I am a worm

and you will be fished up

you will be saved

you will be good

but why do I long for heaven

when I like it best in the flower’s moist soil