Mother

In the mornings I peel off my sadness
& hang it up to dry. I walk throughout

the day with my organs out
as the mosquitos orbit my blood.

I watch a petal bloom into a skirt of pink
& think of how I waited for my first period

for years & the morning the red stain
rippled in the toilet. How I played football

with the boys in the school park
& let my moustache grow longer

than anyone in my class
& isn’t that a type of girlhood

too? In my sex dreams a penis swings
between my legs, a pendulum or clock

tower puncturing my days. I watch
myself destroy the bodies of others.

& my wetness blooms across the sheets.
Maybe this is why I wake up sad.

Longing for my other body only to rise,
drowned in an echo of its silhouette.

Mother, where are you? How would
you have taught me to be a woman?

A man? Can you help me? Each day
without you I pile questions

& whisper them to the soil,
your new body & the grass laughs

in my face. Sometimes I laugh
along & for a moment forget

I was talking to you. Sometimes
I let you go & my body is fully mine.

Fully alive, dancing, boy-girl
feet pounding into the earth.

Not the graveyard it pretends
to be. Sometimes, I come home full

brimming with the hours of the day.
The fault from my sudden joy,

my forgetting, glowing guilty on my skin.
I put my grief back on. I’m not used

to being happy. Like how I’m not used
to high-heeled shoes. Or too many rings.

But, please, know I am not complaining.
Don’t take from me my loneliness.

I promise, my small joy is not goodbye.