cross-dresser manifesto

i strive to make the ultimate
illegal gender. my favorite part
about being not dead yet is
that i can still get weirder. i learn the craft
of hair lace. i teach myself
to embroider. buy a pair of overalls
& get as dirty as i can (all meaning of the word).
i want to confuse
even the normie gays. i want
to be the catalyst for someone’s gender
awakening (all meanings of the word).
i do not think of myself as a prophet
but instead as a rupture or a hemorrhage
just like someone else was for me,
she was smoking on the porch
outside an arcade in a leopard print mini-skirt
with stubble across her face. smokey-eyed
& laughing. legs crossed. pleasers on her feet.
the cornfields around us bowed to her.
i was too in awe to tell her she made me feel real.
my pronouns have millipede legs. my pronouns
are little flags stolen from a golf course.
just like cats, i have secret names
that only i get to chew on. when i say
i want to make my gender illegal
i mean i want to live in a way that
breaks a milk carton or two. that makes a horror man
wake up in the middle of the night
& weep. walk himself down to the forest
& make a garland. the cult does have one thing right.
this kind of gender is contagious.
i have pinwheels for lungs. i wait for a breeze
to breathe. i go to an atm dressed as a business monster.
trick it into believing i am rich
& make it pour money into the street.
people come to harvest. i take only enough
to buy a cup of frozen yogurt
& a leopard mini-skirt & a pair of black pleasers.