valentin

I’m having a funeral for something that hasn’t ended yet I have a funeral every day for gifts I do not yet know how to hold when will I learn to let them live?

I’m leaving the light on just in case I get lost again I’m always leaving the light on just in case it’s not over when will I learn that it will go out?

I’m just saying hello because until now I couldn’t name you I’m saying hello this morning because you’d eat my heart just to be seen when will I learn that some things never stop?

I’m ripping the seams and growing too fast for my skin I’m ripping the seams as we speak and breaking the vacuum seal when will I learn that something is always starting?

I dried my guts in salt and pine needles yet I can still feel their pull I ask them a question: are you still here?

I lost my mind yesterday  in how it happened before one hundred events seen as a never ending pattern

Three days ago, I kissed all of K’s lipstick off. It was matte black, the kind that dries on. It crumbled in our open mouths and flecks of it slipped down our chins. She bit me, as she kept saying she would, on my lip and I think something in me jumped a little. 

I observed the squelching sounds of our lips mushing together for a while before breaking away--at that point I was kissing her chin more than anything, I think. Looking back, I also think I struggled with not knowing what to do with my hand that wasn’t occupied with grabbing her hair and pulling her close, so it just kind of hovered beside me.

All this happened in her car, parked in the driveway of my mom’s house. My lips were burning after. 

When I told this story to Elizabeth, she said, “kissing is like an oral history, because it’s like you’re passing on your previous kisses.” I’m a little bit skeptical. She continued: “you learn something every time and I think you reflect some of that the next time around.”

I believe that I am solely responsible for making sure bad things don’t happen.

Evidence for this belief: 

People I trusted told me, in many ways, that I must do everything I can to prevent bad things from happening. 

Evidence against this belief: 

“Cis men are evil,” “cis men are predators,” and “cis men will hurt me” are things people said in trauma group today. The adding of “cis” before the men statements started with our spiky dog-collared non-binary group member; others started doing the same either as a supportive gesture or, at least, to seem supportive (who can tell?).

The thing is, I know the men the group is talking about. I also know the men they are not talking about: the shitty trans men, who are, inadvertently, being excluded--the trans men who aren’t infallible because of their transness, who act in the same ways some cis men do. 

I wonder if they would still make these men statements if I looked like a man. Would “cis” be replaced by “some” if they didn’t know I was trans? Would they withhold those statements altogether? I could be one of those men for all they know.