Vague mention of trauma
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“It’s ok, it’s just me.”

weeds tickled my fingers
the forest I’d uprooted from my hair
to drown in wilted cotton waves
tall sides that lined my gaze
and the low ceiling
where my eyes could perch above
my nose
and roll across

it was me
that barely showed behind that blackened
wood rotator

yet she was there and I scrambled
I don’t know why
each day I imagined pig iron razors digging
through the road at the boundary
stripping asphalt as I pass by on my
green line commute
sharp, the light of 8:30 digs past my hair
and I reciprocate
or

why do I freeze up and strip down
to cover up

why am I overheating in tiny splinters
that decorate my map
my dots of defaced follicles

I think it reminded
rebranded

I sat in my hair and
calibrated to the syllables
waited for the marks to collect
on my cheek
like rainwater in a pail
it was another point where I
didn’t measure up

and for all my worthlessness
my gaze retreated past the window
to grip the candied grass and ponder if I
was annual
blooming and expiring in the span of a year

That door was both a wall but just
as fragile to be torn aside and
let him in

when I heard the click of
metal joints dislocating
and the tremors of wood released
to plunge into the hollow yolk of my room
I forgot to lock it
and I rotored
and stretched to push it close and flip the light switch

she was still there
looking, urging
I flashed a frame or two of me
just dolled up
in shoes that match me regardless of direction
a dress that radiates past mid thigh
and the ocean basin of thoughts cycling through my head
on a high chance-of-hurricane schedule
rest
because

“It’s ok, it’s just me.”

Notes

Inspired from my experiences a year and half ago, Anxiety in Intimacy covers the experiences of gender dysphoria and trauma, and the first step so many of us take in trusting someone else with our identity for the first time. Winner of an AP poetry contest, and included in the flower poetry series.