living stealth 

everyone is going stealth. 
a doctor asks me again, "when did you know?"
i buy a time travel machine on ebay
& go back to kill a pink balloon on a porch
in a photograph. i get my gender
from a corner store in a little fridge
next to the bottles of soda. it is a sepia tone
kind of year. it is a race car kind of year.
a past-my-bedtime kind of year. 
i stopped telling people i'm trans not because
i want to hide it but because i want people
to be unsure. my gender is uncertainty.
the perennial "which way are you going?"
i answer, "not home." i dig a hole in the yard.
i find a bunch of bird bones. i walk into
a car parts shop & i feel like the whole place
is staring at me. i'm pretty aware of when 
i do not really belong somewhere 
(which is most everywhere
if i'm being honest). i feel most alive
at thrift stores, antique shops, parking lots,
& somewhere in the woods off the trail.
the existence of stealth implies that there
are people who live loudly & openly. 
i have not met them. gender is just as much
about hiding as it is about telling. 
when i meet a man i know he has killed at least
one bird & buried the bones. when i meet a woman
i know that she has gone sleepwalking & woken up
in the dewy grass. i think loudness is overrated.
it is fun to have a secret. i love how shiny mine gets
when the government tries to peer in at it.