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Grades level iconsGrade 12
Genre information iconPoetry
Resource type iconWriting

Unglamorous Transgender

Henry F., Grade 12, 826CHI
In this poem, a student reflects on identity.
About the Author

Henry F. is a senior at Jones College Prep. and soon-to-be freshman at Oberlin College. As an angry queer transsexual who has learned to self-express through the written word, you can catch Henry drowning in theory, writing songs no one will ever hear, and generally being way too loud for where he is. His work appears in Let Us Keep What We Love and Rising Shadows from 826CHI, as well as Rebellious Magazine.

where it walks,

petals encircle stalking eyes

newness running over and into calcified cages

i choke out the white

and make a garden out of onlookers.

it is him, an eternal androgyny

that is a fantasy of no one

but a fantastical kind of beast

it is i, unglamorous transgender,

to take in your hatred and return back this body

decorated, deadening

the sound it makes when it walks

would wrap its hands around your neck

leaving you unable

to let any competing noise

dribble from your mouth

unglamorous transgender wants,

more than anything else,

to be the only one on the stage.

 

from the publication, Archives of My Memory

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