“A felony ban on health care for trans people up to 19 is now close to passage. They are trying to
eradicate us.”
–Chase Strangio, March 2, 2022

i’ve never felt so free—
this new deep voice and stubble
on my upper lip, getting called
sir at the grocery store where
yesterday I bought raspberries
& mango, sweet sun incarnate
nearly cleaning out my bank
account. i can’t stop touching
this new flat chest of mine.
there’s a ribcage rippling under
the rough pads of my fingers
now, a feeling that turns the sky
slippery & marvelous as it passes
through my eyes. everything
makes me so delirious and alive.
i’ve been stepping into crosswalks
without looking, wearing a
zebra print button down
to the gay bar, taking the kind
of 1pm naps that settle outward
through the body from deep solar plexus.
and in the mid-afternoon wakening
i get flashes of my old body, the
boy whose pronouns were once
still fragile in the bio. careful, i
want to tell him (or maybe just hold
his shoulders and feel his exhales),
revelation and heartbreak come all
too close together. nothing could
prepare me for this body like a fresh
egg. ripe for cracking open.