Tag: gender identity

you find the ingredients 
to lose yourself 
in the kitchen cabinets. 
in twelve hours with coconut oil, 
a chopstick and a fork, 
you unkink your hair and
lose a piece of yourself in 
the air that blows between the doorways
of the only home you’ve ever known. 

you’re down a limb, and you can 
feel its phantom 
brushing up against your body, 
trapped
within these same walls. 

you shut the door quickly
when you leave so
that it cannot escape. 
it has to stay inside. 
you want to visit sometime
soon.

phantom limb // a.s.m

I. this turkey is testing
my patience and
i’m not sure how
many more times i can hear 
people ask me what i’ve done with my hair
before i burn
out. 

II. 21 years ago, you thought 
you ate too much stuffing. but
instead of indigestion,
you ended up in a hospital room. 
you said it felt like i was tearing 
you apart. i was tearing you apart 
from the inside the second
i knew i wanted out. 

III. you buy me a traditional
Armenian dress, mistaking my wince
for a smile. so i try it on for you all
the while wanting to unroll my tongue:
to explain that though i know i am
yours in my bones and my blood
and the color of my eyes,
i am also myself and i don’t quite know
where i belong amongst
antiquated pronouns because
i am not quite ‘she’ nor ‘he,’
but nothing in between exists
to my mother
tongue. 

IV. the headdress doesn’t quite fit
under my locs.
‘what a shame’ you say
‘what a shame.’ 

V. My tongue is on fire and
every word i learned in
Armenian Saturday school is being
burnt off
with my taste buds.

when being yourself feels wrong to your culture // a.s.m

you’re too young to be hiding
in the closet
full of clothes your
mother bought you. 

you’re too young to 
hate yourself so much
that you dream of hiding
in there forever, just so you
never again have to wear a dress
on Easter. 

you’re too old 
to be living as anything but
what paints your stomach lining. 
project it in color on city walls. 
scream it drunkenly off of rooftops
to the whole world, a reminder: 

your tiny planet will
never stop spinning as long as you
continue to push it.

your life is too short to be squeezing yourself into clothes that don’t fit who you are // a.s.m