Sample Poem

Nex

When I was sixteen I didn’t know the words
transgender or nonbinary
I didn’t have that world
to step into but I see myself
in your photos.
I see my awkward androgynous desire
My every answer to
“Are you a boy or a girl?”
in a rural town with generations of southern Baptists
flying sun-bleached confederate flags.

When I was nine, my sixteen-year-old brother died and while
I knew he was young
he was still my caretaker.
An adult, grown old too soon.

When I was sixteen I realized
I was still a child
even though part of me thought
I had something figured out.

When I was eighteen I found booze to help
me run from this body and the place
I inherited my shame.

When I was twenty-one I realized nothing
was figured out and so
I set fire to my life to
scare the demons out of this body
to battle them head on.

I’m still not sure how I survived
alone but
I found more booze to quiet their voices
never thinking I’d live long enough
to bother with them again anyway.

When I was twenty-five I changed my pronouns.
I was twenty-six when I changed my name
and along the way when the booze ran dry
I was faced with my own body again.
I wore binders every day because
I could breathe better in the constriction
of my chest than
in the mirror without one.
I hunched over to hide,
grew old enough to realize
I was my own demon
hiding from my shame
in a world I didn’t deserve.

When I was thirty I had a surgeon
flatten my chest.
Learned for the first time
what it means to stand up (queerly) straight,
exist as a person walking among people
not as an aberration, begging to be seen—
removing my chest created space for faith to live.

When I was thirty-one I found testosterone injections.
Thirty-three when I started growing my little trans boy mustache
I was twice your age when
I was able to choose a body
I could keep existing in
a chance to become who I am—
someone
deserving of love.

You weren’t given enough years to choose
your own body
but you were deserving of love.
50% of trans youth can’t imagine living past 35.
I was one of them.
But now that I’m thirty-five and still
have nothing figured out—
they think I’m an elder.

But I’m really just a body that can’t help
but crumble in the face of grace and privilege
and running and community care
and the aftermath of just holding on
for dear life.

But I shouldn’t know your name, Nex.
Not for at least another 20 years
when you turn 36 and do something incredible
for the whole world to see.
I shouldn’t know your name this way.

These politicians, they can’t see
they aren’t protecting children,
only their fragile egos and power.
These TERFs, they can’t see
that we aren’t erasing women
that their hatred fuels our erasure.

When your name comes up, are they sad for your loss?
or are you just another “brainwashed child” fallen
into the trap
of the “gender industrial complex”?
Do they think of your friends?
Of your parents?
The ones that tucked you in that night?
The ones that would have
fought for your freedom
against every bully across the nation?
Can they imagine their own children being bullied?
Because bullies don’t only exist in high schools,
most are on the mics
on the news
teaching the bathroom bullies
to march for them,
creating an army to
take us out
when all we want to do
is live.

Most kids just want to grow up
to be a vet
or an astronaut
or a firefighter.
Most kids don’t choose to be a martyr.
Until they grow up to understand
this world is not meant for them and then
some people choose
to be a martyr
as a refusal to adjust
to a maladjusted world.

But for most trans people
our refusal to adjust
exists in our willingness to
be who we are.
Our bodies are resistance.
Our love is our survival.
Our identities are our anchors,
always in transition.
The most fluid identity there is and maybe
that’s why it is so obviously true.

But mostly
all we really want to do
is create the conditions in our bodies
to learn how to breathe
and grow up
just to be

alive.