Epitaph.

Here lies Caroline

dead on the spot

after spending a few days

with the two most obnoxious

men in her life.

Pangs.

How the days drip, drip, drip,  

eroding my fragile insides,  

     carving at my lungs  

until my scream is lost,  

gnawing at my pancreas  

until the sweet fruits of my labor—

I cannot taste because I reserve it all

for a maybe someday.

       My wrenched eyes  

weep away what remains,

leaving behind only a hollow cavern,  

empty, and nothing more.  

      It's how the Grand Canyon,  

which I’ve never seen, was made,  

and like it,  

I will grow too vast to ignore.  

Then some silly girl will mourn  

never having seen me,  

and drag her sticky-fingered, fussy kids  

to gawk at my gaping void.  

      For a moment,  

she might consider  

leaping into my vastness,  

to live inside my hollowed-out heart,  

or perhaps die a female martyr,

but instead, she will shrug it off,  

as just a fleeting, foolish-girl thought.  

So she moves on to the gift shop;

      "It's just a empty hole, kids. Overrated."

Spend my whole life making myself

something grand for her

only to discover 

       —she's just like the dudes.

my trash

You said, "It's hard because I’m not a passing trans."  

"Wow," I lied so quickly,  

"I didn’t know until you said."  

Why did I lie?  

Maybe because we’re in Alabama,  

Or because the truth didn’t seem to matter  

In our twice-a-week, five-minute meetings,  

As you empty my trash and I make small talk—  

Avoiding your eyes while you dump  

My empty cans of tuna and Diet Coke.

You come for my trash—

Why should I pile on more?

Maybe I lied because, just a moment ago,  

You said your hair hasn’t been right  

Since your grandmother died,  

And for a second,  

I second-guessed myself.

memory's workhorse

How I long to be my mother  

for just one day—any day— of her life.  

Before me, after me, grand day, quiet one,  

it matters not to me. To see her, at last,  

through eyes unclouded by youthful judgment,  

free from the weight of my own confusion,  

unburdened by my choices

                     —chosen with proud precision.

Perhaps then, I would understand the woman  

behind all my heartbreaks, and I would 

no longer be memory's workhorse.

even in my dreams

Last night, I dreamt

you and I formed a band—

The Straying Birds—  

though I didn’t play an instrument.  

Even in my dreams,  

I'm searching for a sideline to the sideline,  

lowering my eyes as my chair squeaks,  

wishing to be a piece of paper—  

folded, slipped into a book,  

to be placed on a shelf and forgotten for years.

oh stormy night!

The rain taps at the windows,  

like hundreds of dead men's fingers.  

The wind wraps around the house,  

hugging the storm into the bed,  

while thunder rolls through the walls.  

I awake, flip from left to right,  

then plod to the guest room,  

where I slept before,  

and visit my own home for a while.  

Cool sheets, different tones,  

a snoring cat reminds me what is love.

I pull the blanket to my face,  

and once again, I am gone.

End of a Strength Year

    Do you see how unsaid words

slip off my porpoise skin? All because  

I love it when you call me "Muscles"—  

as in, I am dragging a cardboard box  

ten times bigger than myself, and you  

call out, "Get it, Muscles!"  

    Yet I still follow my mother's advice:  

"You have to rip a band-aid off" 

so I do and reveal the scabless wound  

I've been picking at for weeks—  

Taming wild animals should be left to professionals,  

not silly little girls like me.

    Just as morale is lowest before the battle's end

and, you, my soldier knows this but I do not—

Your soft, grizzled eyes try to remind me  

muscle isn’t just brawn, but hearts pumping,  

lips curling to a smile, and hands drying tears.  

I am strong enough to end this year.  

self-destruct

---

Take a selfie  

while I practice self-care,  

boosting my self-esteem.  

Then write a self-reflection  

on self-respect,  

in my private journal,  

next to my thoughts  

on my self-image.  

I write it for myself.  

Then I self-impose a rule:  

I must be self-made,  

even when I felt most alive  

in moments of selflessness.

---

Hermit Year

When the walls of Jericho came tumbling down

and I was the last one standing—

in my peat moss sandals,

adjusting my crown as a modern lady,

"I’m almost four decades younger than him."

A fact I could no longer lean on heavily,

but like a boxer on the ropes,

fighting a childhood nightmare,

I must accept it, like a punch—

This is simply me, as I was always meant to be,

and no one else’s doing.

Just looking for a good time—Right, Babe?

Bananas rot faster near each other,  

and so do the deadeyes in a Midwest town,  

shuffling on sticky floors, talking for hours  

about nothing, trading beers and tired words.  

How smart we sound when we repeat

what someone else has said.  

And we wonder about us:  

Do you like us? Are we cool? Do we sound cool?  

As if anyone heard our words over the speakers  

or remembered us through the haze,
or ever really cared—
too busy rehearsing borrowed thoughts,

a furrowed brow looks like listening,  

but it’s only the pause

before they speak—

to impress us.

The next morning, we spread  

"I can’t believe it’s not friendship!" on our toast,  

then head to another bar, another crowd—  

our needs coded beneath the dermis

while everything around us has divorced itself  

from real connection,  

built in silent communion, action from necessity,  

not selected from an array of choices.

A plea from empty soul to empty soul:  

"Need me, don’t want me."  

But we’re both too consumed by the now  

to hear anything but our own desires.  

In the dead of night, the town shouts,  

"What about meeee?"

The Family Ties are Family Lies.

I am my mother's daughter,

     but I am also your niece—

An only child torn between sisters,

    a two-headed snake,

       one, a little weaker—

Two stories held side by side,

the same yet so different—

name brand versus knock-off.

    Something’s not there,

       but I cannot decipher what.

    The Truth—Capital T—Truth,

lies forgotten in a cornfield,

    along with my mother's side—

    dead in her grave with her.

   And I, as a child grown, choose

your side, because I need connection

     after that silent start to life.

Gulps

Poetry—  

you twisted menace 

who I wish to devour quickly,

yet must savor slowly,  

like ice cream through a straw.  

I wait for it to melt in the cup,  

tasting it one drop at a time.

Sometimes talking to you is like pilling a cat.

How you text me at 7:30 p.m.

   my time, but 8:30 p.m. your time:

       "Soo, not sure if you want to hear this,

         but I am trying to get sober again."

     Why would I not want to hear this?

My friend, who I love and who loves me,

wants to try again to embark

on a path I chose and choose again

each morning, each evening.

Committing to and marrying a life

that has grown like moss on trees—

lush, green, vibrant. The moss you instinctively,

in Freudian fervor, mush your hand into

and delight in the calm chill of endless

potential. I like to think that way back when

we lived in tribes in dwellings, not countries and homes,

we licked, and tasted, and smelled, and listened

to the moss as well.

     Why there is nothing I want more to hear

than my friend, who I love and who loves me,

wants to try again to embark

on a path I chose and choose again—

     and love you still if you U-turn back.

sardine-silver mammals or the mackerel of living

    Dolphin breath is conscious—
so the sardine-silver mammal
wakes in the ocean, waves cresting,
sun on the sea floor in zodiac patterns,
surrounding pod swollen and glistening, clicking,
back and forth, see-saw sounds. Awake,
in the middle, could choose not to breathe again.

    Could choose not to
rake tiny teeth against bottom-dwelling rocks,
never again breach the universe,
leap into space unknown—the air world,
spiral into schools of tuna, swallow whole—
            no blood that way,
never again caressed by seaweed, or
whistle, whistle, whistle
in the dark, and still see.
But it does not choose death,
though it so easily could.

    Though the dolphin has a choice,
it doesn't choose to cease.
The danger of being caught in a fisher’s net
is motive enough, for now, to live.

oh sweet and gentle hearts keep true

 

   Trembling like a leaf, 

shivering, shivering, alarm,

    from my outstretched hand,

puffy scratches still prominent.  

    Terror breeds violence;  

I failed to heed your fear.

Should've known better. 
    But for once in my life
I had the upper hand. 

    I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
I'm sorry, my sweet girl.

Could you forgive me? 

Playground Confidential

I'll be Superman if you'll be Lois Lane,

Flying you to the monkey bars, teaching you to hang.

When your knees begin to ache, I'll be your doctor,

Patting dirt salve to ease the pain and make it softer.

Scuffing our Mary Janes, spinning 'til we're dizzy,

Sitting in the grass, our skirts soft and flimsy.

No one has to know— if it's just pretend.

This world we’ve built where the magic never ends.

blood pact

eat the worm.

How shall I enter 2025?

Suddenly emboldened,

in remembrance

of all I've been,

all I will be,

and all that I am.

What else but to bite into it,

wriggling between my teeth,

and chomp my way into the new year,

folding myself unto myself

as I had always done?