planet fitness @ 5am

out the tinted windows
i watch a crow eat a hot dog off the side walk.
all around people are
pretending to be little genders. lift the ghost
of a dead father. break faces
into fragments of breath. i have always
been a disciple of punishment.
call me a chronic catholic. i tell myself
i like it here. i wipe sweat from a machine
meant to teach men how to fly. 
move my arms like they are lead wings.
i dream of a day i walk into this place
& the ceiling bursts open from all the longing.
i cannot help but people watch. i want
to ask everyone "what do you crave 
in a body?" cis people are so fixated on 
transgender transformation but i think it is because
they are also yearners. they are also 
emptying themselves into mirrors 
& asking, "how can this be really my flesh?"
here we share a secret of discomfort.
the reality that the fact of becoming
suggests there could always be an unbecoming.
i do not believe in gender
in the same way i don't believe in muscles.
a man tenses his face
as he lifts a weight to his chin. a woman
sprints over & over on the treadmill next to me.
the crows feast on the guts
of the giant green parking lot dumpster.