And now you look upon my body and you search for a shink that may open me wide and let you in to what you know. You won’t find it though. Do you think this is the first time? But you’re a fool if you think you have a weapon sharp enough to saw down the truth as it stands. And you’re a fool if you think I am different to you. Should you try to pry open my bones and my buttons you would not hurt me anymore, not now. You will only reveal yourself to be what I already knew you were. Because if you’re gonna be a faggot at least follow through. I’ve danced this dance before, I know exactly why you don't look at me now. The flirtatious linger in your gaze, suddenly absent, your eyes are dead. Your stare is dead. Static, devoid of sensation now. You are afraid to look. Do not try to justify it to yourself either, as if you are no fool for not wanting me now. I have not gone anywhere, I have not suddenly changed. I am not your dog, I do not beg. I will not poke my nose out from under the table and look up at you with big, wet eyes as I stuff my snout into your crotch. I will however, tear what little you have into something bloody if you give me the chance, which you now have. I do not beg for the permission to reside someplace that’s mine, as it is yours. You think it is yours. Don’t turn your back to a dog like me. And all this performance of yours does not change one crucial fact: I know you thought about it. I know you wondered to yourself what it looks like when my clothes are all off. Would it even feel different? I cannot take that thought out from the minutes, nor can you. I suppose it’s hard to wonder those things if you’re looking into my eyes.
anonymous 5/30/25
I was 21 when I learned how to hold the fear in my abdomen,
small and cold like a river-stone in my diaphragm.
I learned to feel it there between each breath, and still be able to use my hands
To load boxes and pass out flashlights, and hold an umbrella between myself and police
officers in riot gear with handlebar mustaches.
It is a privilege that I didn’t have to learn sooner.
I was 22 when I learned how to shoot a gun. I thought I would cry
But I did not.
However my hands shook uncontrollably as I pressed each brass bullet into the magazine
And as I raised the weapon to shoot
At the gray, paper silhouette on newsprint before me,
Of which I had chosen the vaguest human form possible.
The only thing that has been honest enough to tell myself
Has been to remind myself that I am still breathing.
“I am still breathing.”
It’s not true to say that I’m safe, or to say that it’s ok.
I was 20 when a small lesbian drew a star on my chest
Just over my heart
With an inked needle that did not draw blood.
I lay on a padded table next to the kitchen, and I didn’t feel very much of the pain.
That was because some of my nerves still hadn’t grown back in under my skin,
Like mycelium.
I’ve been captivated by two things on my short walk home between the bus stop and my door:
There is a sycamore tree that has lost most of its leaves
And its vacant branches reach into the sky like black, interlocking fishbones
Or skeletal hands,
Once the gray twilight reaches their fingers.
On the ground, a few meters before it, is a bush of white flowers.
Every time I pass it, I think Oh how they must glow at night
So pale and bright under the light of the moon.
Maybe to live is to sing a love song into a strong wind
And lose your words to it forever.
E. Falter 5/28/25
Sewed with 900,000 hairs
Interlocking like cracked earth
Synthetic knit with the real
Cells coalescing, unnatural
And the steam through it
Propelled by The Wanting
To expel in a hot burst,
The kind that blinds like
When you step over the
Grate in the sidewalk, white,
Almost animal breath
Sucking in the air through
Slatted teeth and the
Molecules there will marinate
Permeate in the warmth and
Wetness cultivated to receive them
Their essence absorbed through
The throat of its inner workings
It is always hungry
Its bones ache and groan not
With noise, but with a quivering
The boiling well from which its
Energy is derived
A steady hum, a vibration,
A perfect function
Follow through
Flawless in execution,
It does not tire
Its program, deeply engineered
Into biomechanics, organic flux
And fascia
E. Falter 5/15/25
I felt consequently overthrown due to my tiresome labor
with my stomach caving in from starvation
I slept in my lover's arms afterwards
and woke up from a dream where I was only existing
a quiet comforting stillness
where I can only hear my heart beating softly
I raised myself out of the bed and got a closer look of our baby blue sky
my mind wandered to my unreachable desires
I tried to depict these oddly shaped cloud from the sky
I remedied my eyes, my heart and my mind
so I can visualize and form the silhouette of my destined infant
in a fetal position inside of my womb
waiting patiently to be apart of my life
M. Aragon 5/7/25
Like Splitting Egg Whites
In my moment of confession before I fell unconscious
I see it, lit warmly in my mind
Your finger, your single index finger, I touch it
Holding it as gently as a baby bird, I kiss the fingernail
Am I pretending?
“Two things can be true”
I’m cracking the egg
I’m passing the yolk gingerly from one half-shell to the other
Splitting the egg whites
E. Falter 3/29/25
Night Animal
Tell me softly night animal, where do you run to hide?
What worlds do you build beneath your feet as you search the dark so wide
Looking for a place to sleep, a place to rest your head
Night animal, tell me, where do you hold your heart once it has bled?
Night animal, I know the things your dancing eyes have seen
I run beside you in the dark, I live my life between
Day and night and sweet twilight is when I feel my lungs sing gold
Night animal, if we flee fast enough, perhaps we will not feel the cold
For wings of frost and fur and wild, ferns that reach the stars so high
And summer breezes carry scents of sweat that tell you how you’re meant to die
And whisper to you in your ear that your breath is just like mine
And together we may live in fear, but night animal, how your hair still shines
And shows me worlds inside my head and places I can run to
And visions raise me from my bed and chase me where I come to
I never want to dream again, I never want to sleep
Night animal take me to your world, night animal, I am yours to keep
E. Falter 3/15/25
The One Thing
Pluck the feathers from your back
And glue them on my own
Feathers on your back, feathers on my face
There’s only one time I’m greedy
In the backseat I close my eyes and pray
I deserve just a little bit more
E. Falter 3/1/25
Seaman
In a library, small, with circular, yellow windows
Fags crowded the space in night-shawls and leather boots
In formation, several of them stood around a thin rectangular table
Running down the center of the room
They sang, holding the hymns in their hands
And their melodic voices travelled through each hall in the library
Like the calls of the those who had fucked there 100 years ago, now dead
They sang something of the sea, and a man
Though I wasn’t listening to the words
The small space condensed their bodies and their musks
Hair mixed with satin mixed with leather mixed with polyester
And standing within their congregation of sweat and cologne
Strangely, all I smelled was my father
They sang so sweetly
E. Falter 2/25/25
what does it mean to “pass”? “pass” as if you are pretending and aren’t actually are. as if all that you are remains encased in your physical form. the concept of the “human” is so malleable that some are capable of viewing others as less human, recategorizing them as beasts, but simultaneously are unable to stretch their definitions of words - man, woman, etc. the dictionary has become bible. semantics has become a field in which everyone is an expert when a trans person parts their lips to introduce themself.
technicalities, qualifying words riddle legislation to tell me what i am. what i am is a woman - girl, angel, female. a brow bone or a voice below 165 hertz does not define this. even still, the pressure to appear “unclockable” persists. this pressure exists not as an innate sense of being beneath other women but a desire to fall within the hegemonic standard of beauty. a desire to exude whimsy, starlight, and sweetness. all of the things that make femininity alluring.
but we must not forget the magic from which our souls are sewn. the beauty that grows from our hearts and extends toward the darkest depths of the earth. the garden we grow and continue to keep alive and breathing. in the minds of every trans angel lies a vision a cis person is incapable of seeing. a perception of reality beyond their wildest imagination. to be trans is to live in resistance, to withstand the constant storm, to remain steadfast in tragedy, to learn to cradle and console your own weeping heart. but do not live in fear, darling. your heart will find the strength to stop weeping soon.
Yours,
V. Estrella 2/18/25