I think what scares me most is that what I need to write about won’t fit neatly into a poem—I don’t know what to write after that because usually I would write a poem—

I’ll still try to write something of a poem—

I’m thinking about the image of an earth worm—100-150 segments—each of those little rings contributing to the body’s movement—when I think of the earth worm I imagined that each little segment had a heart all to itself but really the earth worm has approximately five hearts—

I’m thinking of this because I’m trying to take inventory of my segments & how many hearts I have made use of—

I told you this wouldn’t fit into a poem—

& I’m thinking about how much & how long & if I really I loved him—about the summer nights we spent together on a cement porch—barefoot in his backyard—shooting bottle rockets—

oh we had to have known—we had to have known—

When I talk about him I pretend like I’m frustrated—like I’m angry & that I regret him but I don’t think I regret him— I don’t even think I regret the things that hurt me—the manic late-night text messages promising he’d love me forever—stealing my iPhone so I’d give him all my attention—he was all my attention—

I came to Ursinus partially because I wanted to stay close enough for him to drive to me—

Freshman year on my way to 8am Spanish I called him & we’d talk on the way to class & I don’t remember a thing we said—

What would we have to say?

We’d fuck with our clothes on & pretend that that meant we could be virgins—

I’ve said all these things before—the story feels old—like I’m talking about someone else—I say the same lines—I say “abuse can feel so so so so good”

& I start to wonder if the pain is retrospective—

I can’t conjure an emotion for it anymore—

& in another room my heart throbs under a park bench where another boy would rape me—I don’t like to write about it anymore & I don’t really know what that means—I can’t resurrect what I felt like in those moments—I feel clinical towards her—towards her body—I feel like I don’t want that to be my body—she is another body—

& the truth is I haven’t gotten that much better—what with the hoarding cereal boxes in every corner of my dorm room

The compulsion to go to the super market everyday as if I’d go there & see my mother & she’d take me for all I am—she’d be like mother’s who write Huffington Post articles—like mothers who join transgender advocacy groups—I know I ask too much & say too little—

Am I trying hard enough?

I just want to exist—I think I have become so pre-ocupied with existence because several segments ago I wasn’t really quite existing—

I bought a stethoscope recently—I’ve always been fascinated & terrified of them—I have this fear that I’ll hear my own heart stop—I remember being in girl scouts when they taught us to find our friend’s pulses I refused to do it & pretended to hold my own wrist—not pressing hard enough to feel my vein throbbing—

In second grade on the playground I sat beneath the slide & thought I felt my heart stop—I resolved I would stay there that I would keep this information to myself—that if I didn’t tell anyone it would go away—it would start again without encouragement—

I bought a stethoscope recently—completely on impulse—at the counter at CVS & I went back to my dorm—turned off the lights & listened—

Remembered my gym teacher telling us that our heart is about the size of a fist- I made a fist—

I make a fist & I think about sweat dripping from my tangled brown hair—a karate ring—red gloves—helmet—mouth piece—I want that—I want that kind of bruise-pain—that kind of kind of awareness of your skin—

I keep joking that I can’t cry because I started T but I really think that it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy—

I don’t know if I’m becoming a different person or if I’m willing myself into a different person—

That’s not my body—

That’s not my body with the long hair pulled like horse reigns—

I grew up around farms & Mennonites (you know that) & I always thought the horses were going to fall over dead—frothing mouthed in August while climbing the hill approaching town—

I felt like that when he made me fuck him—black blinder on & everything—sweat gushing from every corridor of skin

It was so hot—

I wanted him to—I wanted him to touch me like that—I bought panties—I wanted to be taken apart—as if I could become something worthwhile in the re-assembly—

Often times trans people fight so that people don’t think they’re trans because of abuse but I think sometimes that it wouldn’t be wrong if I were trans because of the abuse—

there are parts of this endeavor that are entirely symbolic—biological—as if I could inject every good memory with my father into my blood—

there are hearts I still beating that I no longer feel I own—

& I am so so so afraid—

It has taken me this long to quote someone else

“When I dare to be powerful—to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less & less important whether or not I am afraid.”

Audre Lorde wrote & she was dying of cancer—

I also often think that I’m dying of cancer but if I am I would rather not know it—I imagine it inhabiting all the segments—it was always there—

I don’t like to say my astrological sign 1) because I’m scared of the eyes of crustaceans & 2) because the word “cancer” etched in a star formation terrifies me—

I want to say I’m not afraid of change but I’m afraid of whose body this is—

I’m afraid that I’m not the same human who loved him—that whatever love surfaces on my skin will be somehow different—

What is a body without a gender?

What is a body with a different gender?

Do I want to dare to be powerful & if I do what kind of vision does she mean—

I often think about how butterflies see colors that we don’t—I often wonder if sometimes my body is like a color that is only seen by butterflies—

Somewhere lost between grocery receipts—measuring cups & the last morning I pretended to love him—it’s not the hair on my face—the steady drop of my voice like a melting hard candy—it’s the distance—

I’m thinking of the earth worms crawling out when it rains—

My ceiling leaks when it rains—

Have a made this a poem or a promise?

I keep trying to write a graduation speech but what keeps eroding is my own disbelief in self-discovery—

It’s lovely to think of it all like cartography—treasure-mapped—your body written—chest heavy with gold—

I think it’s more like the rainbow—like how you could drive towards it for hours—taking pictures—pulling over on the side of the road—ground still saturated from the rain & still never find its final resting place—

Forever an idea—

That’s me—a forever idea—

never landing—always all these colors—

Even the ones I can’t see