trans joy

This one is going to be about trans joy

because I’m tired of being a martyr,

as though I’m only valuable when I’m a lesson 

for cis people to learn.

I want less talk about getting caught 

when we stole our sisters' dresses, 

And more talk about feeling a smooth leg rub 

against another smooth leg 

for the first time in twenty years. 

To know that skin can kiss skin 

and be none the worse for it, 

that friction isn’t needed for connection.

When people say they would do anything 

for a Dr. Pepper, right now,

We all know they’re lying.

They won’t give up their job, their family, 

their dignity.

Less talk about giving up our dignity 

and more about leaving a lipstick stain 

on the rim of a cold glass of doctor pepper, 

that satisfaction in knowing you have left a mark, 

of seeing yourself as indelible 

instead of a ghost haunting your own life.

And when lovers say they would do anything for the other,

We know that’s only mostly true.

We know as Meatloaf once said: “I won’t do that.”

Have a threesome, do the dishes, give up meat,

Or go to your bigoted mother’s house.

Less talk about mothers misgendering us 

and more talk about finding 

those legendary, perfect-fit jeans that make you look hot 

but feel comfy all at once.

The kind of pants they write book series about 

and make you feel for the first time a part of a sisterhood.

When I was little, I used to prepare my three wishes before I even found my genie

And the first one, each and every time, was to be a woman.

The second one was to be hot.

The third was for Poison Ivy to kiss me, even if it killed me.

Who would care if you died as long as 

you died a hot lesbian kissing another hot lesbian?

Less talk about dying, metaphorical and literal, 

and more talk about smiling at a child in a grocery store 

and not being treated like a predator, 

of realizing you’ve become a soccer mom with cold orange slices

instead of your soccer father who was banned 

from your sister's matches because 

he yelled too meanly too often too loudly. 

If you had asked me if I wanted to be a woman, 

I would have said yes. Hell yes. Fuck yes.

But if you had asked me if I wanted to

Lose my friends, my family, my job, all respect in my field, 

to go so broke that my house has no heat in the winter, 

and I’m huddling against my tiny children for warmth, 

all just to feel these tiny glimmers of trans joy, 

I would have said no. Hell no. Fuck no. 

And I did. For thirty years, each day was one long ‘no.’

But now that I’m here, 

now that I’m ready to give the sad but angry speech 

that will win some cis man an Academy Award, 

now that I am at the quite literal bottom 

of the quite literal rock, 

I would make these trades again in a heartbeat.

Everything. 

Anything. 

Not for Dr. Pepper or love. 

But for me. 

For the real me I’ve been beating up 

and locking in a closet for thirty years. 

For her, little Aurora, to see her smile, 

to let her have a minute of trans joy? 

I’d do it all over again 

and in each and every timeline.

Yeah. Let’s have more talk about that