changeling-baby

when i was a boy i was told never to cry unless i broke a bone or someone passed away he’d park the car if i was scared and spank me my father liked to drink his beer his pals did too those friends of his called me names like “pansy” he did not stop them. at school it was no different so i cried some more the only things that brought me comfort were the films with folks like me dumbo was my favourite sensitivity was a sin in those early days of life

lay me out and bleach my bones lay me out amongst the stones let your body sing to me and wrap me in it’s noose swallow down that salmon pill with tongue and jawline loose the palpitations in your chest echo those in mine and sum up all the bitter thoughts troubling my mind lay me out and play my ribs like keys and tenderly we’ll kiss underneath the trees lay me out and make me see without the aid of sight lay me out and help me hear without the aid of ears lay me out to rescue me from all my primal fears

precariously drift into oblivion carry me surely faintly i can hear records that we used to love riding on this wind a timbre so sweet coquettish nymph, you deny the music we made

how miraculously I would serenade you. your body bathed in moonshine—the rim-lights of your backside: blue. i open my mouth and out fly fingers. they play lunar lullabies upon your strings, and melt down minds to those of babes sucking at maternal teats. legato and slurred are my songs. transparent in execution are the poems from which I pour my soul. am I well received? are sentimental, salty jewels falling off of rosy cheeks an indication of enchantment? of success? past experiences lead me to assume these tears to be disingenuous. still, i sing. just as the tides cling up towards mother moon hoping their songs inspire

white are the pills to cure my blues. black is the world i see when sleeping. Grey are the lapses in time the two create.  

I am not boy. I am not girl. I am not both, Nor am I none. For none of these exist, In the grand scheme of things. Yet, were I made of of Adam’s rib, I’d be ill.   Women. 70% of the world’s impoverished. Women.   66% percent of them, illiterate. Women. Objectified, harassed, under-paid, under-fed, mutilated. Murdered. And for what? What purpose does such disrespect serve? To prove masculinity is to be admired, that femininity is not to be celebrated? Surely, It must be so.  For Girls may wear their hair short, and buy clothes “for men”, yet the second a boy powders his nose, or reddens his li