Double Sonnet for Transgender Dysphoria Blues
2 Minutes Read Time
a golden shovel / after Against Me!
All I ever wanted to be—the summer
daydreamed of. Girl in the floral-print dress
& endless golden fields. I just wanted you
to future me, when so many people want
me past-tensed. I know I can’t convince them
I deserve survival. A future to
grow up into. I know that they can’t see
a girl’s body beneath this dress, but you
zip me in like gently dressing a wound, like
I highlight my cheeks, paint my lips, so they
will mistake me for what I am. First see
the dazzle & not the jagged scruff every
morning erased. Woman & not the other
name given before I was ever named girl.
How do you survive the body that you’ve
been given? Boy’s a name I barely got
through alive. Was called a son, but said no
’til I wasn’t a daughter either. Called cunt
in the street. There’s no language I’m safe in
-side of. I wear a pin that says NOT YOUR
NICE GIRL & men still try to claim this strut
is bait for their animal lust. Laugh &
show all their teeth. My mother tells me You’ve
made yourself a target. Thinks that I’ve got
a death wish. I don’t tell her how the word no
buries girls like me. I just want to pass
like an arrow through the air. Just want to
speak & have no one notice how I shake.
Read more from Issue 18.1.
