Justin Demeter
TRANSGENDER TRAVELOGUE
it's not always easy to find an entry. to pinpoint a gender. to say yes, with certainty—
pride even: I live here. fingers dizzy from traversing the map. to be transgender
is to be across. between lands. my body, an ocean, filled in places with coarse sand.
in others, with calcium erosion. I’ve occupied multiple continents, but I’m afraid
to travel. I’ve taken women. as boats. I’ve never taken them inside me, but I have
swallowed them whole. sometimes we need the cisgender. to keep from drowning
in ourselves. I sailed on the floating body of my ex-wife for a decade. I felt at home.
she dressed the wounds of my healing nipples, called them by the names of famous
musicians, so I wouldn’t be so terrified. I braved a new continent but became
homesick again. the seabody itches for fresh geography. daily shedding of ourselves
is a quiet act of being human. skin, vessels we fall in love with, suddenly foreign
land. I am homesick. I gently salt myself down. swallow the unmarked coordinates.
taste the undertow again.
such wounds cleansed by sea
fill your collarbone with salt
I am growing fins
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