JONI

To the girl I see at gigs sometimes

To the girl at backyard shows, less shy every time

To the girls who threw the bricks that built the houses

To the girls who come through my checkout

And we get all nervous

And big beaming smiles

To see ourselves just living

To my sisters of transition, transcendence and transperth

All pink and blue and white

On hormones, on fire, on their own path

To the girl who burns punk

Whose pages blaze with irreverent gayness

Our sweat on the dong fang fish pub mosh pit floor

To the youtube girls and the instagram girls and the writer’s festival girls and the girl who fell into the night

Librarians of trans misogynistic implications in the discourse

You weave the myth and mock it

To Kurt Cobain, probably

To the girl next door and the girl next door and the friend of a friend I never heard about before

To the doctor who taught my doctor and gave hell to gatekeepers

To the girls in men’s prison, in 4chan suicide campaigns, in violent homes, in early graves

To the girl who asked to shared a smoke in my old body’s safety on her first time out in a skirt

We go all the way back to the empty page

To the girl who melted my mind with her intergalactic voice

To the girl who drums around town, who serenaded my situationship

And to the girl who fell into the night

To the really hot girl I wanted to fuck on my birthday

To the girl who was my first boy before we both knew

To the girl with the chaos tatt with the anarchist A right… there

We were trapped in an endlessly recurring sapphic poly paradox

Tequila and a freeway mattress

I broke your heart between my legs

To the girl who stormed out of my kinky national anthem

Who I’m told has a home among the veterans

To the girl who’s wife wouldn’t let her dress up to host the fundraiser

She wore a scowl all night and you wore eyeliner and pride

To the girl I fell for as we stacked the shelves

You cleaned up my shattered grieving olive jars

Backstabbed by your blood

You ranted transgender rituals and moved in only two weeks in love

We are the truth of each other

To the other poets’ daughter, I saw myself in you, then and now and between our awakenings

I dance on your grave like nobody’s watching And you scream along in hopeful nightmares

To the girls who never knew

To the girls who pass, who don’t pass, who will pass it on

To the girls targeted much harder by male hate than this white civvie

To the long list of girls we’ve lost

To the girl I see at gigs sometimes

You look stunning tonight

You are not a novelty

You are not a failed man

You are not a thief

You are stunning

Sorry I’m a bit awkward

A flower on fire

Just so stoked to see you

To see us

To see our grace and courage

Thank you

Your body will be free, I promise

Your heart will be full, I promise

Your rage will be holy, I promise

Your hope will be pure, I promise

Your life will be lived,

I promise

Unravel my DNA, unfurl each strand, go slowly, s l o w l y. Carefully, please. I feel every pull when your hand draws back. Don’t ask too much about how each particle formed I wasn’t there when it was. You use a tender hold between thumb and forefinger

I’m weeping

From deep inside my molecules Come forth the stars, Sprinkle dust on your skin

“Describe it to me”

“I can’t”

A film of tears

Coat his eyes

Do I trust you?

To see inside of you like this?

On the day I am bravest

I empty out my Sundays.

I point the knife carve a hole in each one until the calendar where they sit drains all over my carpet.

Wringing dry the worship that used to be. I shred the pages of scriptures coated in my identity. Cry a riverbed and baptise all that is old until the pages are submerged ink bleeding.

Washing away who I used to be. On the Sunday I am my lonliest, I gather with others Yearning to glorify Black womanhood on blank canvases. Preparing a holy communion around a trestle table drawing the shape of our world. Sunday service in session, gather here. Our prayer is shared laughter unearthed from our ribcages. Reciting poems on freedom conjuring new magic, imprinting their spells on my flesh. On the Sunday when I dream again, I offer a prayer in slumber.

Tangled in sheets, robed to honour my rest.

I stretch out my limbs in praise for Sundays. My Sundays.

Peeling my eyes, blinking through a film of tears coaxed by my revelation: Today, I am free.

I am no one’s woman but my own.

It is midnight. By the river. We are shivering. Goosebumps, kisses and your beautiful smile.

I am not scared of falling. But I might be scared you would not notice.

Pain will make you think about life in a totally different perspective. Are you ready?