i am in between the sentence structure of this body.

None of this is easy to explain. I am called girl or woman or miss everyday.

How to explain: I know I look like all those words, but actually I am none of them.

How to explain: Can you ignore the length of my hair and yes, these pants were purchased in the “woman’s” section of nearby thrift shop, but that is just thread. And measurements and hairstyle shouldn’t declare my parts.

How to explain: There is not just one way to be or exist. Seven days arrive in each week and we can take on a new shape every hour, if we so choose. Not everything…not everyone needs to make sense. Boxes hide things and we should encourage one another to be out and take up space.

How to explain: I know you touched me there yesterday, but today I want to pretend that away. Today, I want to be closer to another gender, not the one I was assigned or the one you think I look most like, but the one I feel.

How to explain: Actually I am not in search of beautiful or pretty but handsome and hearty and smart.

How to explain: My genitals have nothing to do with my gender and asking about them only shows how boxed-in you are.

How to explain: Pronouns have begun to feel like masking tape, silencing my flesh.

How to explain: Sometimes bladders grow into force-fields of superhero strength because entering a room with a silhouette of a “WOMAN” or “MAN” feels unsafe or inaccurate. We need more gender-neutral spaces where we don’t have to choose.

How to explain: You can ask. You can make mistakes, but let’s allow room to discuss this. You can have gaps in your knowledge but how about we glue them with words so that we can all understand each other better.

 

 

Oh, like that.

if this is dying i am ready to live

When you posed/ with screams held open by upper and bottom lip/ did you know you’d be
jumping

How skinny was your grey and white mind, tilted
corner peeled
pressed into insignificant frame
&
gathered for Guggenheim possession

You were so desperate for moon, you dipped fingerprints in acid
&
burned one onto a building

francesca woodman

[where did the pain come from]

In Boulder, Colorado you broke into backyards
stole clothespin off laundry lines and dug them between
folds of your belly nipples ribcage

Francesca, you left all your body hair alone
[like me]
and your loneliness pushed you closer to art but
further from others
[me too]

You had a fondness for geometrics and mammaries

francesca woodman

And I have fallen in love with your right breast, perhaps
because it has been upstaged by your left.

And the trees
thin and long like you

In New Hampshire, you hide with stones and forest
align feminine to outdoor breathing

/

In Rome, you hung from door frames
haunted exits
reflected angels into puddles of gravel and dust

hid from calla lily too large
to approach
for inhale

determine the need for cross pollination

Bones. Fat. Veins. Scar. Scratch. Roots. Mother. Remnant. Scar. Flaw. Fat. Wrinkle. Liar. Homo. Thighs. Daughter. Hazel. Curls. Knots. Scar. Fat. Fondled. Wrinkle. Knuckles. Belly. Fat. Callus. Flaw. Hurt. Angry. Scar. Scar. Scar.

things to do
things to think
things to catalogue

perhaps an appointment must be made to regulate blood cycle
hair growth in hard to reach places
interruptive coughing sprees
and that lump

how fat is fat is fat so fat

photo by francesca woodman

when you notice my fat fat fat
fondle it
suck out its glycerine and
use as lubricant

(oh)

it is spring now and trees end their monthly rotation of nudity in honor of yellow leaves, sap and wind