Writers Who Teach, Teachers Who Write
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53
COURTESY OF THE ARTIST
Today I run the clippers over their head, my child wrapped in a black cape, tight but not choking, pieces of girlhood falling to the floor. Tomorrow we will order a binder. We will work together to break anything that smothers who my child feels blossoming from their soul. Tomorrow we will walk past the bathrooms with their block people in pants and skirt, and I will watch the door as they use the non-binary, family bathroom, somewhere in between.
Her Release, 2010 (mixed media on plexiglass, 15x23) by Moriah LeFebvre
Today, I realized my daughter was never mine. They are their own, twirling in a mass of boundaries, smashing into the beyond I didn’t know was there. My dead expectations for this femaleassigned-at-birth to a world of boxes, now lay on the floor with light brown waves, the sun warming them with promise.
Durham, NC native MORIAH LEFEBVRE graduated from the North Carolina School of the Arts and UNC Chapel Hill. She earned her MFA in Experimental and Documentary Arts from Duke University. Her work has been shown in numerous exhibitions, including Through This Lens in Durham, the LGBTQ Center in Raleigh, and the ArtsCenter in Carrboro. Her art is included in the Rubenstein Arts Center Collection at Duke University and the Triangle Community Foundation Collection, also in Durham, among others. Her art has appeared in such publications as The Sun, Essere Magazine, and Cellar Door.
