7.12 / Queer Three

JUST TRY

[wpaudio url=”/audio/7_12/Jacobs.mp3″ text=”listen to this poem” dl=”0″]

Don’t worry,
it’s just gender dysphoria again.

It’s just changing planets,
like we’re only so far
from the sun as it is:
Why shouldn’t we be unhappy
with these bodies?

I’m not famous enough
to be doing this alone,
but God if I knew any other way
don’t you think I would’ve been the first
in line to abandon this form for a better one?

Yes, there are a few surfaces
that I agree should never be
tattooed; if we’re built like
furry white potatoes
pretending they’re girls
it’s the last thing we want
to overhear:

“Believe me, if I
wasn’t so thrown off
by the shape then
I’d be convinced.”

MAYBE THEN MY BREASTS
ARE ALREADY BIG ENOUGH
FOR A SMALL-BREASTED
WOMAN HUH

Fuck you, we’re not fruit.
Somewhere buried in this stolen wallet
there’s a picture of me with boobs
and bangs down to here,
and I look fucking good.

Listen, I know all about peer confession,
but lately I’ve been content to
crop heads out of photos
and pretend I’m Laura Jane Grace.

I can’t stop shaving my body.
One day it won’t grow back
and all these cuts will heal over.

You’ll whisper, “How can he
let a cock like that go to waste?”
and I’ll answer that I’m sick
of being stuck in this warm orbit
and teasing precum from the tip of your
conversations-can’t we just get this over with?

I want you to go ahead,
PRETEND I’M JUST CONFUSED,
and I’ll pretend
that I’m not
absolutely fucking livid.

At least I’ve got my
fingers and toes


Simon Jacobs is an angry young writer from Ohio. He curates the Safety Pin Review (safetypinreview.com) and serves as the flash fiction editor of Flywheel Magazine. He digs things out of the ground and re-plants them in a small patch of garden at simonajacobs.blogspot.com.
7.12 / Queer Three

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