mirage boy

gender is the world of almost.
let's almost fall in lust. let's almost
make palindromes with the lights on.
i once found a skeleton 
in the back yard. i thought it was
a tiny boy but instead my father
told me it was just a chicken. 
the chicken whispered, "i am a boy."
how are we supposed to trust
what the world tells us we are 
when we know it is wrong about 
so much? gender is 
that unearned trust. most days
only the spiders know who i am.
they tell each other, "that is a traitor."
don't get me wrong, i want to be liked.
dear god, i would do anything
to be liked. eaten with a tuning fork.
threaded through the eye 
of a chicken skull. get rid of the glass.
get rid of a mirror. live off nothing
but mirages of animals. the flesh
& the fury. come & get me.
i am the grape vine's blinking eye.
i no longer know if i want a gender.
instead, i think i want a lake
to sink my troubles in. a harvest ground
where no one can tell me what i look like.
instead, i'll cherry tree my self 
into a story about a terrible nation.
a gender is never an idea. it is a physical place
where either you are the mirage boy
or you are the wheel barrow
full of broken stained glass windows.