canon

mx jen durbent

Content Warning

Sexual Assault, ACAB, R-Slur, T-Slur, Violence, Drug Use

Our documents are useless, or forged beyond believing.

—The Church – Destination

For J.

On Her Existence (2018)

A poet more than thirty years old is simply an overgrown child.

— HL Mencken

Excuse me! Excuse me! Sorry to bother you while you’re reading

your book, and I’m sorry if it’s creepy,

but I can’t help but notice that you put

non-dairy creamer in your fairly-traded,

organically-grown, coffee-shop coffee. Well, maybe that’s not creepy.

But I’m pretty sure that it is creepy that I can’t help but notice

the cut of your skirt, the height of your heels,

and you might want to pluck your eyebrows.

I’m not saying this as a judge , but you

might like to know. I just notice

even when if I can’t look at myself in the mirror

and take my own advice. I don’t want to say more

and I can’t help myself and I know

you might be offended and I apologize. It might sound

weird coming from someone

that looks like I do

that I can’t decide if I want you

or if I want to be you.

I know that it’s not OK. I know you

are a fully formed person and that your presence is not

an invitation. My brain is limited.

These couple pounds of meat is no immovable

object against the unstoppable force of unwanted testosterone.

But I’m trying.

The latter might be more interesting, but it’s grown difficult

to discuss, though I will try. I am afraid

I can’t help it. Just remember when I say the light in my soul

went out: you had nothing to do with it.

Inside I have my own goddess and she is hope for proper gnosis.

Is it shame that I do not believe in her? I’m afraid

I can’t help it. She is barely a breath, nearly invisible

like the steam off chai. I don’t think I am being clear.

It’s not really my fault; but it is.

I am afraid.

Let me just say it.

Part of me—part of this him—

is a her.

And I’ll be damned if she isn’t fabulous.

She comes out to say to the universe, “I exist.”

But this him pushes her away with tears and

the iron and food and hate and says,

“Just wait, please.” She is patient, but

she doesn’t want to wait, not really. She is beyond waiting

and chastising me for edging into cowardice.

I can’t blame her. Would you want to be trapped inside

this terrible visage? So I tell her:

“You should never want to be real.

Because the world is worse for hope;

because dreams never ever come true;

because dessert never is as sweet;

because fury never is as righteous;

because sex never is as dirty;

because crying never is enough release;

because love always is lopsided

because whoever gives less has more.”

She doesn’t believe me. At all. Logic cannot dissuade

her, especially when she’s not constructed of logic;

she is the result of the mathematics of synapses, sinew, and hope.

Enough about me, or her, or us!

You inhabit your body, your poise

and your pose

and your placement of leg atop leg

and hand on handle

and the way you hold that book. I can see roots

in your dye job;

somehow that makes me envy you more.

So when I get up to leave, please remember as I pass homeless

teenagers warming their hands over unlit tinders: I do not stare

just because of lust (though I cannot deny that). I stare

because you are beautiful to the one sharing my heart and she

wants to ask you how you became

so beautiful, so real, so true.

to break your own heart

To break your own heart,

find a seam

previously mended

and place it on the edge

of a desk,

intended for great novels

but used to write

suicide notes.

Grip either side of your heart firmly,

as if this were murder

(because it is),

and

p u s h.

After the snap

tells you it’s done,

mend the injury

with tears, ice cream.

Add a dose of silence

and compassion for her

because she never asked

for your love.

Nolo Contendere

for Zinnia Jones

I have transed

the boys

that were

on the internet

which

you were probably saving

for capitalism

and war.

Forgive me,

they are girls now,

so treat

them good and right.

They need love,

estrogen,

and blankets

because

they are sweet

and your world

is so cold.

the blind woman in love with medusa

Inspired by an illustration by Dahui Wang

Smell of the sea wafted through ruins

already ancient before we took up residence.

There was the warmth of the sun on the roof,

the singing songbirds, the occasional breeze

dimpled our skin.

There was me, Tiresias, a prophet. The gods

made me a woman, too. But I laughed. They think

womanhood a vile and horrible curse, but it is

a blessing. And there was my love, Medusa,

the serpent-haired beauty. Beauty? Those who saw

her turned to stone, such is the curse when glimpsing

her perfection. Trust my words; I know things that gods

keep secret. That is why I am blind: sight stolen by

small gods for a long forgotten slight.

We lived for years, her flesh soft and mine as well.

We lived as woman and woman. We lived with joy.

We lived with love. I knew her beauty, I felt the chill

of stone in my bones as my fingers traced her face

still warming my heart. Her kisses sweet to make

the finest fruits as rotten meat.

We both had needs, and I tended to hers.

I went to the market for her fruits: grapes

and pomegranate firm and ripe. I placed them

in my knapsack when I heard her screams.

I let my cane guide me homeward bound.

When I arrived, I found new pair of columns

made from men and my Medusa, my dearest,

without her head. Her beautiful voice, her touch,

her smell replaced by the rot and putrid stench

of a man’s lust for glory.

I cried out, “Where are the righteous angels

who carry death in their purses? Why are

you not here for me?” I cried and the curse

washed out of my eyes and I could see

again and my first vision was the woman I loved

struck down. I wailed at the vision, so I scraped

out my own eyes and held her fast and tight.

I pray the vultures come quick and take

our bodies to heaven. Now I lay next to her.

I strike my own wrists with the sword of gold

and a wait for the end, for us to be together

again.

leap year

Shattered amber glass bottle shards

sparkle across the alley as stars.

(Sterne waren schöner,

als ich

ein Mädchen war.)

Discarded needles point up

like antennae to heaven.

Flowers bloom

in February sun and lilacs fear

no frost from our dying land.

We have stretched patience

and prudence

to cowardice,

as taffy pulled and pulled and turned

and stretched and then burned,

covering all the fields

in forgetful ash.

Two children play in front of a garage

The games are as before.

Forts

from coffee cups

once protested fiercely,

mended together

and measured out

with coffee stirrers.

The brown-haired one flicks

a marble

fast

and laughs as structures crumble.

Across the alley from them: a high-rise.

Built in some forgotten age and

carved from concrete and decorated with

more rotten pine-wood patches

than windows.

I turn down a road and find houses

made facades, only the front remains.

Through windows I see

sky where living rooms had been,

where Christmas trees held presents,

where hard discussions were had,

where quiet nights were spent in front of televisions.

Buildings stolen, mortar made mush

their bricks picked like vegetables

and shipped to artesian bricklayers

building behind gates with guards.

In Wetsoff’s husband’s words,

“Und nur der schweigsame Tod, der weiss, was wir

und was er immer gewinnt, wenn er uns leiht.”

The past is gone,

that hostile foreign country.

I only remember

Sears Tower’s shadow reaching into the lake,

antennae like a claw.

Last time we went

all there was were

dead gulls,

a sailboat shattered near a fallen pier,

and a tide way out.

Flight of the Hippopotamus

They flew in the food on Thursdays

until last week, when the plane went

down, smashed against the mountain

ridge, less than a mile from here.

You can see the burnt out skeleton

from the village’s highest hill, over

the trees and against the granite,

decomposed, ashamed of nakedness.

Hopi, they say, is better suited to discuss

quantum mechanics than English.

Maybe that is true. Everything is

better said through other people’s words.

But I do know that when we screamed

at the explosion in the sky like children,

my own voice was merely an

echo of everyone around me.

And, on the fourth day, the elders and I

passed a decomposed camel corpse,

on route to the plane to scavenge; all we

carried back were razors and burnt t-shirts.

The heavy-handed lesson of survival was:

I left on the sixth day. My plane came

from the west out of the sun. I flew

to the sunset, violent chrysalis behind me.

flood

wish

for

the

path of

least

resistance

Lest

we

let out feelings and they are too much for the dam to hold.

A Loving Myself Ghazal

Write a poem, Jen, about all the reasons people rightly love you. I expect no less than 10.

— Jenny V Simile

Unsure, a woman on a balance beam for first time in many nights.

I am to enumerate loves for me of all sorts, both by day and night.

I held him as his wife died. He looked at me with a heart wounded.

I held him in my heart and nursed him back from his soul’s dark night.

A woman sees me with her esteem low, “At least I don’t look

like that,” she says. Her laughter echoes through the night.

Looking up, her one uncovered eye a mix of lust and fear: grab her

hair, point her face toward me, our kisses explosions in the night.

The mat sits in front of our door, covered in mud, mold, and dead leaves.

“Welcome,” it says as she stands on it, fumbling with her keys every night.

“Mom,” she says and looks at me. “It hurts.” Me gentle hand on her tummy,

the cramps tightening until she sleeps. I stay with her all through the night.

If absence makes you grow fonder, then I will be the source of all

delight! My fears of being a burden, plans of leaving keep me up all night.

My mother says she loves me; she calls me and tells me I am a

girl. I hate it and don’t know why. I still cry almost every goddamn night.

After a show, a trans sister gave me a hug, thanked me for ,

for being visible, and she ran off with her friends ran into the night.

We held each other, our legs intertwined, our fingers interlaced, our lips

locked, the curtains pulled tight and drawn, making a facsimile of night.

The mirror is kind today! It reflects a proper color light; perhaps fat

has moved subtly. Now I see a Jen. I see a girl worth holding all night.

bury me as a woman

The ground

is the only thing

I trust

to hold me true

and hold me forever

as I am

and always will be.

the raft (2018)

It is hard to see

log lashed to log,

in the waning

moonlight.

The raft floats

on the open

sea.

Its tattered

sail pointing toward the past

like a monument.

The lone passenger—

oh captain—a girl standing

with red sun-bleached hair—

looks to the bow,

guiding herself

by the stars her father

taught her nigh half a world away.

Those same eternal lights

in the sky his father’s

father taught his father

who taught

him.

The waves rise up

up and crash down but

her ship’s close hauled sails

take her toward a place

she used to call

home.

Meaninglessness

A submarine sits, broken in half,

crossed akimbo on the sea floor;

the skeleton of an almost-survivor

is a floating home to fishes.

Coelacanth rests in the ribcage

of a once-man. Dinosaurs, evolution

of man: trivialities. In death

there is a use for this man;

before, he just took up space—

him and all his neighbors,

lovers, parents, and siblings.

An ancient fish thought extinct

doesn’t concern itself with sunrise

after any solstice or white dunes

on the seafloor.

The skeleton is as unimportant

as the president; an artificial reef

bisects the hull with vicious colorless

barnacles.

These fish will see the sun boil

off the oceans as it grows larger

and reddens the sky. No-one will

ever catch him with a hook and lure,

shoved through the cheek.

Ruins of a Memory Palace (2018)

I don’t memorize my poetry because

I don’t trust my memory.

My memory does tricks like

“You coulda” and “You shoulda” and

“You asked for it.”

I keep kind notes in my purse

I keep them safe.

I keep them so

I remember

people like me

people love me

my dog feels what dogs feel but

at least his tail wags, shedding hair

I will sweep up later.

Without the kind words

I just remember:

I hate you.

you’re ugly.

nobody wants you.

you’re retarded.

My memory does tricks:

when I see a cop, I remember

when I was 4, I was handcuffed

and laughed at and fingerprinted.

{ As an aside: this ruined bondage

until I discovered leather, latex,

and rope. }

When I smell pot, I remember

the man

who tainted

the joint that we smoked

and all the ones I

turned down after.

Despite my best efforts I do not

clearly

remember

the birth

of my children

and I don’t know if that’s because of my

awful, terrible, no good brain

or because I was the second most exhausted person

in the room, and

then the third.

[Do not tell them, not

like they would remember either.]

Texts from the woman

who says she hates me

once

are 1000x more in my memory

than the countless I love yous.

That part is true

that she tells me she loves me.

I wrote it down

just now

just so I would have something

to trust.

I hate my memory.

I hate scenes never forgotten

and those long gone.

My memory does tricks after all.

If you’re too good to me,

it might make you disappear.

I feel as if I have lived two lives,

the first life with evidence,

what my notes say,

what loves,

what recommendations,

what money and therefore symbols that people give

when they say, “your words are worth something,”

and the other life of memory,

what I remember,

what I wish I could forget.

I might have missed the point here.

I meant to copy pasta, to trans scribe

the good parts of my life so I can’t forget:

My daughter braiding my hair

Her helping me learn to

Wing the eyeliner just so.

[You can make over a tran

and she’s cute for a night;

or you can teach her

and she can be style

her whole life.]

I meant to write the thank yous

that the kind words deserve

that the days I wake up and read them and

that gets me up and out of bed and through the day,

including this morning,

to read this to you.

Thank you all you bright and rising angels.

Despite what RuPaul

and the self-help books say,

I can love you.

I hate myself better than anyone

but I love you,

too.

And that I will never forget.

one deep breath away from weeping

One deep breath away from weeping we buy our pickles and salt.

One deep breath away from weeping at nothing at all.

One deep breath away from weeping, we decide to move forward and never stop.

Pagliacci

I have this joke

About when cops took me from my parents

when they cuffed me

What I leave unsaid is

I hyperventilate when I see men in uniform.

I do not feel safe when they are

anywhere. They are all dirty.

I don’t finish that story

because who knows who is in the audience?

That thin blue line

encircles them all like a witch’s ward,

the blue stripes on a racist flag for a country

promised hope and gifted horror.

Hashtag not all cops.

I have this joke

About how I do not want a vagina

Because I saw my wife

Give birth.

Twice.

I can’t compete with that.

What I leave unsaid

Is

I cannot mother like that.

I cannot hold a child inside.

I cannot stand thee insides.

A baby will never call me “Mom.”

I don’t finish that story

Because they don’t pay me to cry on stage.

I have this joke

about how Bible Thumpers

Told me I need a man.

I found it validating that

they saw me as a woman.

What I leave unsaid

is that when they called me ugly,

gross,

and all the rest.

I don’t finish that story

because I need to project confidence,

even if what the preacher man

said was true.

I have this joke

about killing myself.

Only stopping so the driver

didn’t have to do the paperwork.

What I leave unsaid,

is the look on her face

when she sees you

and knows

and you don’t want to break her heart.

And what of how the wind pulls

you in if you stand too close.

And the smell of diesel exhaust at

60 miles per hour

is ineffable.

Haiku for My Fellow White People

Let those people speak.

Why don’t you shut the fuck up,

then go punch Nazis?

Boketto

Lady liberty, trans woman,

sits on the cement banks of the Potomac.

In her left hand, cherry blossoms

from last year. She plucks one at a time

with her right, then tosses them

in the river. They ride the current

out of sight. Will she live to see

them bloom again?

A kerchief (from her murdered

sister justice’s eyes)

pulled down over her nose and mouth,

keeps out tear gas from

containers behind her proudly made in USA.

A moment of doubt: should

she collect rocks in her pockets? Should

she fall into the water? Let her strength

seep away. Perhaps. But not today.

She stands, looks, crosses the street

unseen by police, walking home

to a small apartment far from K street,

far from Pennsylvania avenue,

far from the mall,

where she can get to work.

American Canon

Listener, I and I and we witness

the death of the American empire.

When it falls

it will be fast and sure.

We know why the caged child screams.

Ripped from parent’s hands

by collaborators who cover their faces with hoods.

When America says to the universe, "Sir, I exist,"

the universe tells America to fuck off because she is pissed.

Two paths diverged in a wood,

and America traveled the one far too narrow

for everyone to fit.

They revel in freedom

for those who only desire the

freedoms

of whiteness

of straightness

of cisness.

But cheer, "We are free!

Do I contradict myself?

Very well then I contradict myself,

(I am large, I contain multitudes.)"

April is the cruellest month, breeding

hatred out of dead industry, mixing

false memory and desire, stirring

nostalgia with hate.

We measure our lives in Trump tweets and Senate votes;

fill up the phone lines

to beg Senators us to not kill us today.

Their staffers answer the phone,

"Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori."

Workers marched asleep. Many had lost their boots

But limped on, blood-shod, unable to pull themselves

by their own straps. They cannot hear their children ask

"Why the hole in the roof big enough

for me to fly out but the rain can get in?"

I, too, am America.

I take these words

–like others white me have

taken, co-opted

(even if they are part of me)–

and made them fit–

a stolen corset

shaping me

in a flattering light.

{ Lest though we think we are

kind [let us be

kind]

we should never forget [

never forget the smallpox blankets is one story among thousands never forget that we left queers in the concentration camps never forget we love celebrities more than our children { more than our little girls (more than our big girls) } never forget that AIDS was ignored never forget that we love our racist sexist homophobic xenophobic bigoted poets writers artists never forget the drug war is waged for discrimination never forget Stonewall was a riot never forget men with torches { tiki torches of all things (!) } marching never forget we invaded countries just because we could never forget he shits in a golden toilet never forget insulin used to be cheap never forget we can be hurt too never forget who cannot breathe never forget none of this happened long ago

never forget not

for guilt

but so we don’t repeat

history

] that some

poets

were among the worst and }

Pull the stars from the American flag and

use bullets holes instead.

Our parents shot the american

dream long dead, left it

decomposing behind boarded windows

in redlined districts.

The bite

of the dog is fast.

And the cruelty

is the point.

America would not stop for history,

So she kindly stopped for us:

her barge contains forgotten glory,

oppression, ever broken trust.

We answered freedom’s manifest destiny,

with flurries of bombs that would embarrass a blizzard.

We saw the best minds of our generation discarded because of a man’s career, starving hysterical men dragging themselves

in senate chambers prowling

& stalking

angry power.

Dark angel claims justice burning for the ancient connection to the fading dynamo in the machinery of democracy.

This generation greets death as an Internet friend

hugs and kisses and fucks and sweet oblivion.

We saw this coming.

We should have named our generation Cassandra–

we always saw this coming and they don’t believe us.

The First Man I Loved

I fell in love with you as we ran

from the cops down alleyways.

When we finally stopped,

bent over,

hands on knees,

laughing, our trespasses

forgiven

misdemeanors in our minds.

The sunlight bleached

graffiti we tagged

years before,

on the then-new homes,

their erection postponed

by distant corporate

bankruptcy. The piles of dirt

left by unpaid contractors

littered with beer-can pull tabs

from long dead parties. They

poked out of the mud

like manicured fingernails.

We laughed. Our misdemeanors overshadowed

by fraud somewhere far away

in a shiny office building.

Even more years later, you got me high;

we watched shark week.

You rolled, you lit the shake again,

then passed it to me first.

I should have known the blank

eyes of a predator,

but I trusted you.

After you dosed me,

after you fucked me,

you took a shower while I cried.

You were

laughing, your trespass

no crime in your mind.

a dream of undoing

I was an 11 year old boy when I fell off my bike

jumping

over planks of wood

laid

across

bricks

scavenged

from alleyways.

from new construction, in lots recently made empty.

The falling never hurt.

The cut from a broken bottle I landed on [hands out (super hero)], didn’t hurt.

Nothing hurt until the bike ride home, bleeding

bloody,

& broken,

and I didn’t know if I would be beaten

or cared for.

As the doctor made rough handy work on my huge hands.

Chicks dig scars–he said, as he laced my hand like a sneaker.

Do they? I don’t.

The pock marks on my face,

the scars on my knees from falling,

the cuts across my hands from stunts gone awry and washing hot

sinks full of half-sharp knives,

the slashes across my stomach and legs and arms I put there with purpose,

the scratches from cats (lest we forget them): chicks dig them?

Do they? Do we? Do I?

I do not. Not my own. No.

Later, the stitches from my life line

to my love line

perplexed the palmist in the family.

Maybe your scars tell a story of interest and intrigue,

the time you fought a bear,

the time you ran into a burning building,

the time you got drunk and visited a body art parlor and saw a rose-petal scar on the artist, and you obsessed over your own de- sign until right as she branded you and you smelled the smell of the hot metal in your flesh and the smell of the hair on your arm burning.

But mine only

my clumsiness,

ineptitude: I cannot see

my skin as canvas of scars,

added by years, with the slow process of

a patient artist,

master of the most methodical methods.

I see only the failure

to know I would some day

be a 40 year old woman.

cupid bow.

“Tran Valentine’s the name,

love and gender obfuscation is the game.”

We live with

obsequious bottoms

and persnickety tops.

Bashful exhibitionists

and brash hidden lusts.

Please never forget

my siblings,

never ever forget,

you are wanted,

especially if you think so

and especially if you do not.

10 simple rules for dating a trans girl

Preface

Congratulations

your brand new trans

girlfriend does not come with

instructions, but

proper care of the trans girlfriend

may ensure a happy life

and maybe

a happy wife.

Also note individual variation

is part of the manufacturing process

and is not a bug

but a feature.

0

Trans women are women.

1

If you’re a girl, dating her doesn’t make you straight.

You don’t lose your gold star–

you fucking cliche–

when her dick isn’t made

of silicone.

If you’re a straight boy, dating her doesn’t make you gay.

Even if she comes in your mouth.

But beware,

we know how creepy you are.

We’ve seen some shit.

If you’re bi or pan…we’re cool.

Just remember:

2

Trans women are women.

3

You gotta tell her

that she’s pretty.

And let her wear the thing

the girls wore in

high school.

She probably did not

go to high school as herself.

She was someone else:

Some sloppy nerd.

Some overwrought jock.

Someone else just because.

We’re as varied as the men we never were.

She never had a girlhood

quite

like that.

4

She’s gonna read the news

and about 30 times a year

a trans woman will be murdered in the United States.

Most of them will be women of color.

She will mourn

for her sisters

and she’ll learn the dead girl’s deadname from

the police statement to the paper

and she knows the guy who did it

will claim

he just

didn’t

know

when he swiped left

on her tinder

and her profile read

“I’m trans,”

right there on the fucking top.

5

If you get her flowers,

she will cry.

And that’s not a bad thing

she’s had to learn that.

You should too.

6

Trans women are women.

7

Pickles.

I’m telling you pickles.

It’s best to not explain.

8

I bet you thought I was gonna say trans women are women.

You know what: True! But

trans men are men and you better listen to our brothers,

And non-binary people are valid and good.

9

Muffing is a thing

you probably have never heard of

but you should find out with

ENTHUSIASTIC CONSENT!

10

And this is most important

Trans women are women.

Trans women are mothers

and sisters too.

If you can’t tell, it’s true.

And even if you can, it’s true.

Please treat them right.

treat them like any other girl.

I hope mostly

that means you treat

all ladies well.

Trans women are friends

and lovers

and teachers

and co-workers too.

LGBTQuisling

There is a man who

betrays all he is

for a role.

His role is quisling.

He is the man married to the bigot.

He is the movie director ignoring trans women of color in history.

He is the man in drag who says “she mail” as a gag on TV.

The quisling is a bit of

self-important bullshit.

Whose “we gots” fester and pile up like a landfill of Styrofoam and

plastic bags and diapers

The quisling is the woman who thinks women is a womb, man.

The quisling is the friend who makes life harder

with free speech.

The quisling is me:

for my exhaustion,

for my ignorance,

for my am always

wrong and often

furiously

The quisling is the abuser.

The quisling is you. Because

in 100 years you

will never as good as you are

now.

And that is a beautiful thing.

xenoglossia (2018 rev)

Presented in many parts

—On Brueghel The Elder’s “Tower of Babel” For R.A.W.: Fnord in Peace, Brother Bob.

Warning: This is a chain poem.

Within the next 55 days you will receive

thirty-eleven-hundred pounds of chains.

Having conceived Babel, yet unable to build it themselves, they had thousands to build it for them. But those who toiled knew nothing of the dreams of those who planned. And the minds that planned the Tower of Babel cared nothing for the workers who built it.

—Maria (from Metropolis, 1927)

The theory seems to be that as long as a man is a failure he is one of God’s children, but that as soon as he succeeds he is taken over by the Devil.

—H. L. Mencken

“There are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds.”

—Gilbert K. Chesterton

Nihongo o hanashimasu ka

From scaffolds atop Babel I see gilded cities up

on the clouds, gorgeous gargoyles keeping watch over

the plains of Shinar, over us, over our

humble tower of rock and mud. On another horizon,

I can see the edge of the flat world, where water falls

into I don’t know.

What grand architect drafted infinite tortoises on grid-

paper? Who conjures them from the four elements?

Who mixes fire and wood, draws ashen stains upon

their rocky backs like rugs? Who coalesces the jade

geodesic carapaces covering soupy-soft innards?

A clever eagle picks up a turtle and drops him from

such great heights onto rocks at the foot of our tower–

the eagle’s meal workers envy, and steal and devour

and are happy, like the vultures of Babylon feasting on

infants dashed against the stones by water’s edge.

I can see the bird’s belly above me, down waving

like a holy flag after battle. Are eagles allowed

to see God when His own image remains blind to him?

I am cursed with a vision of Him, sitting in His

cloudy castle, moping and afraid of His creation.

We know He is an unknowable deity behind walls,

a petty deity who delays coming to see us,

an impotent deity who status we will conquer

with rocks and muddy masonry.

I am alone within sight of God’s flying buttresses

and below is firmament and my fellow man. Alone,

against orders, I climbed atop and away from it all,

to see all creation; I could splash like the son

of Daedalus, barely a ripple on the Aegean, arms

splayed; a plucked, panicked, clumsy albatross, flapping

against nothing. The castle would stand unmoved.

¿Usted habla español?

Near the quarry, the king no longer hears our words,

his words are no longer the words of our fathers and

father’s fathers. He speaks in gibberish and nonsense:

the talk of animals rather than men. Is the king mocking me?

I compliment his robes and he mocks me? The other men look

confused, like fish getting clubbed on the pier; they are

out of their element and facing violencia rhetorica.

What is this? We’ve labored at the bottom of this

tower for years, our reward stripped with no possibility

of ascension. We, the many, the soldiers, the workers,

the collective hive buzzing at his needs with our next

meal, our next rest, our next apotheosis.

What is the order, sir? Nonsense! Nonsense? More taxes?

Speaking in tongues and illiterate lips? No chief of state!

No-one can respect the red robe and crown with no mind,

the body that holds them both trembles like a beaten bitch

babbling and incoherent. The soldiers talk all at once,

no-one listening. Us workers either. We do not understand

any. There is no coup, no conspiracies, no beyond our words.

We all speak louder, maybe volume is comprehension.

Self-perpetuating autocracy to mindless anarchy,

everyone with their own mistaken identity. I will head

home, south, down the Tigris, to Ur, and see my wife

and children, nurse them with tales of woe and my small

farm, but do they know my language? Can I show them

how to plow fields and how to raise barns?

Can I show them my scars and tell my war stories,

exaggerated and full of meaning like my fathers?

Slaves scatter like moonlight in the clouds, and last

I see of the king is a stomped-on collar, the white

of that hare is absolutely meaningless to anyone

without the words–

Sprechen Sie Deutsch?

This hero is the last one on the shore at the foot

of Babel, my leg dangling off the pier, schools

of fish just below. God is behind him, a slight

glow of wisdom and practiced senses of the soldier

feels the presence, that final visitation.

“The fire of his opal eyes making glowing, living

jewels, measure steadily.” The soldier’s song:

“The purpose of this is resonant and crystal,

like air in its transparency. What is your reason

for fear? What does it mean to you if we the people

Say ‘let there be light?’ and take your place on our

own Olympus? What is your damage? Your malfunction,

imperfect creator? And what does it say about

your creation, the strongest of the animals?

What of your disinformation and glossolalia spread

From horizon to horizon?” The soldier continues:

“Who hears me among the ranked angels as I

cry out? The one with twelve wings, the snake

in our garden, our creation-right, and he helps us

break your ignorance spell, the snake is our savior,

knowledge over good and evil. Now, we ascend, we

approach you and now, here, God, what have you given

us? New definitions for old concepts; contemptuous!

What is your fear?” He breathes deep and starts again:

“Take this as prophecy: We will not end here.

This tower dwarfs you, and towers of the future

will look down in disdain at the clouds, and the

round world below will be a pale blue dot.”

Ĉu vi parolas Esperanton?

Let me tell you the story of all the monsters of all time.

In the beginning was the word, struck one letter at a time

with an old typewriter, or a pen so cheap and dry you can hear

the scratch of the ball-point rolling in-socket, reaching up

into the well to bring more ink to the page. This word

was composed next to thousands of others; and lined up

in neat rows like soldiers razing a village, collecting slaves

to build great works and be lost and forgotten in Moloch’s name.

The sun is setting, and I stand in the penumbra of the tower

which stretches across the world to where the sun will rise.

How many rooms are within the tower? As many rooms as years remain.

Did you think we made it to confuse the god Loki? No. What a pitiful

Man. We took his daughter and confounded so she could not escape

and instead did our bidding for our worship. Because the best way

To kill a god is to not believe in him. Hel, Loki’s lovely daughter

was not always confined to shadow her blue-black face. She is not

all she seems. She desires her own worship, and through the roots

of Yggdrasil, she found her place. Demeter did not search long

for her daughter. Do you believe me? You need not. Someone will.

Bullshit makes flowers grow and that is beautiful.

Have our endless doors made you a rube? Cube after cube

separated by endless arches. I have the path. Pay me. There

is no minotaur, scraping his axe against the walls,

alighting stars into existence. No monster mumbles,

“Let there be . . .LET there be . . .LET there BE. . . ”

Unazungumza Kiswahili?

“Since Noah’s flood we have become brothers again,”

I said to the man before the confusion of his tongue

(because I surely was not the confused one).

He gently teased me and said those were the floods of

Ogygian. Regardless, the antediluvian times was a long

ago past. After we worked we went to his house in the

shadow of the tower, that rounded ziggurat against

the sky. We laid on his roof and looked up in vertigo

as the clouds passed what was the top of the tower;

small chunks of sky were consumed by scaffolds

ladders, and levers. We enjoy the silence.

When the stars came out, he opened his mouth on me

and I understood as if his words were my own. We traded

words over tea overflowed with milk and honey. Oh!

We were not united any differently than in your bed.

Later, after we lay in bed breathing softly

near one another, his chest hair under my hand,

we laid in silence. Until I broke it:

“Our words are the words of Adam, and he

named all things, and that makes him a kind

of god.” I said this without fear. He nodded, “Eden

is our creation-right. Together, we will smash

the flaming swords that guard its entrance;

we will pass through the valley. We’ll eat fruits

and taunt the serpents and claim what is our own.”

When we looked up again at the stars, we drew

lines between them with our fingers and named

the constellations as if it were the first time,

As if we were Adam. Sometime after Scorpio,

he spoke pointing upward at empty space

and was as if my ears were filled with water.

Badakizu euskaraz?

There is an obelisk at the forest edge, the clump of black

combines with the trees against the dawn sky; ebon veins

flow out like the fine blue ones of my forearm. Villagers

and slaves like me crowd around it and tilt their heads

as if we were confused dogs, as if we understand this

as more than the block of rock.

This is a moment of evolution; the obelisk was the first

firmament, appeared again when Cain slew Abel, when Adam

begat Eve, and when we find one on the moon, believe

our footprints aren’t alone in the dust of this planet.

We all see the monolith as a prize, some solver of all.

Merchants see it is a profit. And when a stonecutter

puts his chisel against the rock and raises his hammer,

suddenly there is nothing there but the dew-wet black

forest, moist, like cake, and a heavy hammer pulled back

left in the dirt, grass returning to form where its owner

once stood, and then no more. Yes! I ran away.

Parlez-vous français?

I address the dirt, my dirt, for I am the king of Babylon!

“Did your ancestors tell you to play with your creation

like mashed potatoes and gravy volcanoes? Disaster

is not a plaything, malevolent entity. Beautiful

volcanoes will not create enlightenment. Giant bivalves

may be amusing, but do not necessarily create the most

valuable pearls. Let us pry them apart to inspect them,

let us pry the rocks up from the quarries, slabs of Earth

held aloft in arches masoned by triumphant mud. For what

is mud but where dirt meets water. Even a fool knows this!

“Adam told his son, Seth, that Eve and Adam were born

of dirt. When I die–when I am fully grown–I will return

to dirt. It doesn’t take a genius to know Adam and Eve

and Seth are here in the walls of this building, at the base

of all that is holy, of all the world.

“Adam had his own Babel, sowed his own confusion,

when he came from the garden, he changed the languages

of all the animals; so the cat attacks the mouse. As above,

so below.”

I lie. That is what I would have said if I had the words,

instead I merely said, “I should have been a mason.”

Você fala português?

I lie because I lie. I write because I lie. And that all

is a lie and I don’t know why I tell them. Did I fail you.

Though I know it’s not a test this time. I told my mother

I didn’t believe in you, reader, and she wept for my

eternal soul. Though that is a lie, too. But that is a

mother’s lie. There is no soul. Father taught me that.

Lie. Prophesy. The difference is the arrangement of

tea leaves. I will tell you the first human clone

will be Adam, and he will be perfect in every way,

like all children.

He will proceed with us through that window like a bullet

–back and to the left–and the tower of hell and the great

serpentines of the highest order. He will stray far

from the ivory tower to a the cusp of the forest

garden where snakes bloom and flowers flow and take

his place where he belongs.

The star anise is in season. May it bring us all

bitterness! Behold the mountain we made at Babel!

As the once and future Adam watches, it trembles

crumbles. The sentence for hubris is–

Do you speak English?

I’m sorry; I’ve been drinking. Send money. I can’t order

beer or wine any longer. So I just drink whatever is left

in the ashtrays when the bar closes.

The universe is a big place, maybe even the biggest. On this round

world we’re scattered, with continents linked by dinosaur bones,

raindrops

looking to join rivers looking to join rivers looking to join oceans.

Can you find you, among masses of men pouring out? Dirty

water and you dilute you, you think. No! You become more. You are

the earth plus plastic! You are mere tools to give me what I need.

Have I found the god in everything who makes the grass green?

It ain’t Eris. That bitch and her golden apple have nothing on me.

Mu is the answer. Says little,

does less,

means nothing.

Are you looking at

the trees? Only you can prevent

forest fires. Smokey will just steal your pic-a-nic basket.

Or is that me?

Let that motherfucker burn, leave landscape like a body builder’s

muscles standing in relief. Can we laugh at them? Do they even

lift, brother? Let the handlebar mustaches catch their tears.

Buddha put down his pen and crossword and told you

not to worry, madness and vexation

would be your reward

if we contemplate the beginning. The beginning does not lead any-

where useful.

Except the end. Can’t? Or? Infinity!

You will build broken cathedrals and worship plastic refrigerator magnets.

As you are outside yourself, reader, you promote you to godhood.

You are knowing more than the you seem.

come with me and step toward omniscience.

printf(“tlhIngan Hol Dajatlh’a’” && eggplant_emoji);

Reader, contemplate:

the usefulness of

the little chip-clip as-seen-on-TV.

Thusly, from cans of meat electric this way came:

disclaims most old of our liability taste

it also wave tells you

how conversation between Captain Helding

and high-jump dragon boat

festival of your husband–all decoration

a man came and was favourable:

and the real green-eyed monster Hungarian

with graffito satisfaction that showed itself.

And when mutton makes sense as a cake topping,

next to man and man, man and wife, wife and wife

and everyone in between and without and outside the false dichotomy of gender

and then even more

and undreamed plural singularities

That will be the day we understand universal grammar,

and we all know that merciful Cthulu,

King Kong,

and Frankenstein

died for your sins.

Do I speak English?

The emoji and Latin and the French and the affectation of ironic

hate and

all all all the words that could exist.

We no longer build do we? Did we ever though, really?

Didn’t cross-bound cardinals chastise their children for staring at the

stars

and dreaming of anything?

And all this–

dear god,

all this–

for a question

from a child

on a picture

on a wall

of a story

from a book–

and a god–

I can’t believe in.

Storming the Foothills of Mount Olympus

1.

All you need know: I am a soldier, dressed in a prior hoplisis,

fighting against the gods. My goals: succor and gold.

Achlys moves the Earth with her words: “Armies

onward towards the crest of this hill and

onward towards the home of the Gods;

ever forward, forward to usurp these

faulty idols. We do not pray, we demand

what’s ours and will raze their castles to sand.”

I say, “Those who stopped just before this hubris

are what we call, ’Unambitious.’ They are

forgotten soldiers who history clods

upon with terrible hooves. Great people: this

is how we inhabit history. With ideas and tar

and mortar and art. We are dancing stars.”

—We are not the greatest. We would fall

under the forgotten tasks of our ancestors.—

Achlys orders us further upwards to lay siege

the Home of the Gods. We will starve

them of pomegranate and catapult rocks

and rotten meat. We will not leave these

mountains without just rewards, riches carved

by Zeus; his burdens become our toy models.

I can see the great walls now: battlements

bare of soldiers are covered with a haze—

a smoke that refuses to rise. It is dusk;

I lay my head on the grass; slaves raise tents

for officers. I breathe deep: their supper today

is fowl: all save the best officers have gluttonous ways.

The soldiers empty stomachs churn, prolapse into

nightmares and make sleep exhausting.

Morning. “Xolotl has distemper; the eagle god’s soft eggs

poach well,” Achlys tells us we will be upon them,

we will fight the gods and triumph and win and reclaim

“For we have made them in natures image, the hags

and the dogs and the eagles and warriors!” Then

she stops short, breathes deep, and pulls up phlegm.

She spits on the ground; it is clear and healthy.

“We spit upon their throne; we deny their place

at the head of our lives; we deny them any fame

or hope or existence. These gods—never the

way to truth—have occluded our search, face

to face they tell us that we’re the inferior race.”

My own doubts are still full and fast. There might

be something to this even still, even still.

“They’re worse than us because they learn slowly;

even now, we see that bombs and wrath are tools

of last resort, and they act like the unwashed.

They are not our betters. We raid brutally

but with hope. We will kill those fools

who, with our sacrifices, lived petty & fought petty duels.

“And we see their castles brick by brick now,

each one white square and arranged by a slave.

Imagine such a life! An eternity of toil for naught;

for the mere pleasure of an ungrateful sow.

Zeus is mine. When I enter His castle, I’ll pave

the world with his soldiers, from general to knave.”

—Do her slaves hear her words as she promised freedom?

Do they know she lies like every man before her? No.—

Small men—advisors—scurry about. Taking news

from scouts and prisoners returned. “Silence,

silence!” she says, wills, orders. “Speak, men

in chains! What returned treasures from our dues

to the gods lie ahead? How shall we battle? Lance,

sword, or siege?” Them: “There is barely even a fence.

When we ran to the gates and throw them agape—

no longer afraid of terrible white towers & buttresses

overhead,” he said, “We scurried, looking to pillage, ran

upwards, forever upwards, into empty spires. From nape

to foundation, of goods or gods or men.” “What nemesis

bound you, stripped you, and held you in place?”

—When gods are gone, who else is left? Who remains to lock

them up? Logic says themselves, but it is a cause for wonder.—

“Achlys, we locked ourselves in the dungeon and traded

our freedom for fear of blasphemy. We were not afraid

of gods but certainly of no deity. Let us return to our holes,

bound and miserable and secure.” She looks over faded

skin, gaunt and hanging loose, and clothes frayed,

worn. She says, “Do you say that when we raid

we, too, will feel this fear, and feel an ache for restraint?”

“Mayhap.” “Well,” she says, “I have felt deep aches, though

I wouldn’t call them aches from fear.” We laugh. “Souls,”

she says, after the slow men understand her faint

wit, “take a boat to that river and row, quickly, row.

Stay midriver. Rocks line the shores. Beware of undertows.”

—Of course you don’t know (do they?) just around

the bend and below waterfalls and rocks and hard clay.—

2.

Awake again. Unlike in my dream, there was no maiden;

only a pile of urine-soaked hay. I regret nothing.

“Our Queen!” someone yells, “The Queen is dead! Smothered

under feathered pillows, her last breath still warm on silk

pillow cases. Will you, can you, may you not weep, sweet

Achlys is dead. Some pious bastard, some fervent brother

of some false prophet, some demon or another of it’s ilk

stole the life of her who led us to the honey and milk.”

I ask, “Guards?! Where were the guards? All her guards

in this world were as impotent djinni on a vacuous moon.

Dead by dawn; her life disappeared before birds tweet.

Dead. Now, only by tall tale and legend will mere bards

finish her deeds. She is dead, gone too soon, too soon.

Now our own quests look just as quashed and doomed.”

The others rise from their beds, find our leader vanquished,

and merely shrug and turn toward home. Honorless fools.

“You cowards evacuate even before a funeral dirge reverbs

through this valley,” I yell. “Very well! I shall go alone

against the gods. Your leader dies, you run! I won’t abandon

this war. You, who would simply turn away, are the turds

a skunk would not bury! You could not present a bone

even for a siren!” Abandoned, I bury her on my own.

So I set myself with a grimace upon the burial of my queen,

I took a shovel left by a gravedigger (profiteers,

but I don’t envy their task) and planted rocky dirt one

pile on another, down until the ground was unseen

even if I stretched up on my toes. The grave clear

and deep and long: I climbed out, thirsty for wine or beer.

I do not pray. No gods remain to hear my cries. Yes!

I mourn but I will not pray. And I do drink deep.

At the end of the day, she lies still under dirt and rocks

and some pitiable headstone, and I alone sit here. Even

the supply train is out of sight, now. It is just me

and that pitiable, terrible, white castle, its loch

choked with algae. Dusk erupts, and some un-heavenly

light flickers from the building. There is no decision

I have made so willingly, to head into that abode to slay

whatever demons, gods, or men that killed or ordered

to kill my queen. Thusly and forever, I shall forsake the

minor desires of life and love, and my thoughts every day

will be revenge for matricide and execution of brutal cowards.

I know and ignore that such vengeance makes hearts sour.

Sustain me, Vengeance. I cannot plead with an emotion,

but may it sustain me for what is surely a forever war.

I sleep again after burying my queen, and I hold no hope

the night will slacken my rage, but it turned inward.

How dare I—all hubris and fantasy—make justice? I

shame at the false words I said. I fashion a rough rope

into a loose noose and think. I am not a bard,

I am a fool who makes love sword-in-scabbard

and I am a fool who cannot finish even a fool’s errand.

How dare I—all failures in my crowded heart—propose

anything but to dive from cliff to rocks. Why try?

Let me do nothing and not fail rather than to defend

some concept as honor, valor, pride. I can say to those

who doubt me, “I am a coward, written in poetry or prose.”

But am I? I have lived through more battles

than memories. I know there is valor in beer!

I face the castle and eye its iron fence and surrounding

curtilage, again the grounds look idle, not gardener nor

soldier disturb the architecture, glamorous white

stones stacked and grouted with more glittering

mortar disturbed regularly with murder holes, no door

visible. This is more keep then castle; a fortress for war

and no other purpose. Fear not, we are at the foothills

of the great mountains, and this keep is but the first

building to fall. “Coward,” I tell myself, “before the light

dims in the sky, add at least one number to your kills.”

I breathe, close my eyes, and when I open the curse

of fear has cleared and I move to slake my murderous thirst.

The distance collapses as I approach, alone, but the sun

sets fast in the sky. Wasn’t it morning not long ago?

The dark is no matter for this mission, and there is no restraint

upon my violence with what I find on the throne. I’ll run though

that false idol with my bare hands, and the pitiable souls

he’s deceived will then be free. The hope and the light is faint,

I charge closer to this castle, this keep, into the row upon row

of gleaming white bricks towering over the moat’s deadly undertows.

There it is! A massive door, and I must enter it. Ground traded

grass for rock in front of that door—and yes, yes I am afraid.

Solid! Cut from one tree two men’s height wide. I see no holes,

for keys nor hands. I push against where the wood is faded,

and it moves easily, and I can imagine ropes, frayed

with time, pulling it open. I step in, ready to begin my raid—

The sword is comfortable in my hand, and the shield offers

comfort like a mother. I press forward, ever forward.

3.

The smell is wet and cold and tired, like boots

worn walking through a shallow runoff in the early Spring.

Of course it is dank and dark and dirty, what clean world

do I expect in a castle built for war? I must confess a fear

of bugs bigger than my hand. An unlit torch in its holder

smells of pitch and tar, so I spark my knifes whorled

Damascus blade against the wall and light it. A small tear

of flame falls to the floor. I piss it out with my mourning beer.

I belch. After the echo, no sound other than distant droplets

of some unknown liquid and the crackling flame. The corridor

branches: two paths diverge and I turn left, opposite a dead cur’s

pile accompanying quiet flies. “And this fecund waste, wet

with maggots, is found in a castle? Even disgust in war

is a weapon,” and I trudge onward, but I need not travel far.

{ When two gods meet, nude as the barbarous men who

made them, each believes they are the higher rank. }

The walls widen into a room, the ceiling high, peaked

and adorned with a story of creation. A single man sits,

cross-legged, center of the room, looking at me curiously,

floating. I can smell his vanity from here, the stink

of his perfumed self offending even beyond the dog shit

I avoided; his face tells me he’s not long from mommy’s tit.

“I am all that is man and god,” he says. I respond, “Obesity

should not be a goal of an immortal.” The portly hovering

man smiles. “Ah. Your joke is unfunny, old, and simply

louder. Originality is not your generation’s forte. Pity.

to waste immortality on a normal person, not a king

or someone worth any more than a strand of string.”

Either the floor is warped, or my eyes are. Light or this man

play tricks! I trust this man even less than light and shadow.

I charge the floating prophet and knock him from mirrorwork.

And, sprawled out on the cobbled stones and dirt, white

clothes turn dingy gray as he fumbles to his feet.

“You fool! What curses you engender! Go on, smirk

now, but know,” he inhales sharply, “I am surely in the right.

You are damned to eternal life, no Godesses lighten

your load. Your friends—” “I have none!” “—they die in fires.

When the world ends you exist. No man shall end you, fool.

Even death may die before you have a chance to meet

your end. You will wish, beg, plead for your own funeral pyre!

Even upon grass that could be put out with a baby’s drool,

but no. You will live forever, even past the sun grows cool.”

I laughed just now, unable to keep it away. Tell a sadistic soldier

like me I’ll live forever and see how wretched that forever is.

“Very well; I am immortal, and only God can end this life,”

I laugh again, “I will gain honor! And how does prophecy

change me? I fight for my queen’s memory and her whispered

sighs live beyond your lie-strewn oaths!” He says, “Strife

will be your life and her memory down the bowels of history.

She will be forgotten by everyone, even you eventually.”

“As long as I live, I will speak her name.” “And even the air

will be gone around you, and your voice will make no sound.”

“I will write her words,” I say. He contends, “The ink will blur

among all the words of humanity. But to be just a little fair,

some writings will live until even the tablets of stones are ground

into powder, just before the sun grows plump, red, and round.”

I say, “You say the sun cools, then you say it reddens and

grows. You fool!” He says, “You are a fool. Stars live long lives.”

He sighs and rolls his head around his shoulders, and I hear

his bones crack. He stands. “Tell me what you fear.” Again,

I laugh, “Have you considered writing comedies?” He coldly

reads me, “You fear the terrible enlightening knowledge. Fear

knowing I am truthful and right. Maybe just then,

at the end of this world, when neither kith nor kin

surround you…Tell me, how is your mother’s back?

Her other pains?” “How do you know of my mother?”

I ask. “Well, I could never know, except you told me.

You told me of your mother, your family, your pack

of wolf-dogs raised since pups to be loyal to no other.

Even I doubted. Until your torch lit this foggy ether.”

“You could have guessed all of those things. Tell

me more about what you know of my mother.”

“Her back is twisted like a screw. She worked for your

gain while your father warred under your forgotten queen.”

I raise my hand, “I would not—” “—say such things if

I were you?” he cut me off, knowing my words before I do.

“You will learn much, immortal one, though she seems

great right now, her existence is as ephemeral as steam.”

“Despicable or ephemeral? Choose one!” I say. “Both,”

he says, “Evil and good are simple words, you teach this

to all the children and monsters of our time; when a whiff

of an errant wind could kill you, every day is a trophy

to be held and cherished and every night’s sleep is bliss.”

He smiles, “My words are weak; my argument is amiss.

“I will show, not tell,” he says. “I was once like you. The only

way out is through.” He disappears, and I am again war torn.

To be continued “When It’s Done.”

Afterword

I wish I was a better poet.

That’s it.

I wish that when I feel the compulsion (and, dear reader, do I feel that particular word to do things with words, that what I made seemed important and good. But it never does. It never will. Regardless of what I think of the poems, I hope you like them. I hope that you find something enjoyable in them. I hope there is a turn of phrase that brings you joy, an image that touches you, or maybe a sentence that makes you feel a little less alone in the universe.

I just hope...and that, in and of itself, is new for me.

I love you. No matter who you love or what body you inhabit.

Thank you for reading.

About the author

Jen Durbent is a non-binary transgender woman-type thing who lives in the greater Chicagoland area with her family. Jen uses she, they, or it pronouns. She also performs stand-up comedy and is working on her second novel and screenplay. Find her at and on the Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and so on as JenDurbent

Selected works

Sexts and Sonnets (Poems, 2017, Self Published)

My Dinner with Andrea (Novel, 2018, from )

About the publisher

Hybrid Ink, LLC began in 2018 with it’s inaugural publication, Jen Durbent’s My Dinner With Andrea. Borne out of a desire to see more of the publications they loved, Madison Scott-Clary and the editors at Hybrid made it their goal to provide well-versed and sophisticated works of fiction, poetry, and creative non-fiction.

We want writing that gets us thinking about ourselves, stories that span genres, and words that change the way we look at the world.

canon

1. On Her Existence (2018)

2. to break your own heart

3. Nolo Contendere

4. the blind woman in love with medusa

5. leap year

6. Flight of the Hippopotamus

7. flood

8. A Loving Myself Ghazal

9. bury me as a woman

10. the raft (2018)

11. Meaninglessness

12. Ruins of a Memory Palace (2018)

13. one deep breath away from weeping

14. Pagliacci

15. Haiku for My Fellow White People

16. Boketto

17. American Canon

18. The First Man I Loved

19. a dream of undoing

20. 10 simple rules for dating a trans girl

21. LGBTQuisling

22. xenoglossia (2018 rev)

23. Storming the Foothills of Mount Olympus