She, I

Content warning: Death, Explicit Language

Image by Jay Weaver

I think, therefore She is.

She thinks, I no longer am.

She left the house this morning, mature, and ready to

embrace She’s newly afforded independence. She kissed

the dog as She left the front door and turned around to

see him eagerly awaiting She’s return with a wag in his tail.

That was the saddest that She has ever felt, for

She has never felt the feeling of significant loss or pain.

She’s ex messaged She this morning. They had not met for

years and She had nearly forgotten her face, but not her taste.

They met for coffee and fucked later that evening. When the

butch left, now bearing new bruises on her neck just next to

her woodlice and spider tattoos, She thought kindly of the

prior evening, bearing little regret and much reprieve.

She does not remember seeing froth exude from an

incompetent father’s mouth, percolating it from his eyelids,

lying on the floor, never to stand again. She does not yet know

the feeling of crying tears into the dog’s fur after gently kissing

goodbye, knowing that that dog’s care was never paid for, for

he was never cared for, and that day was to be his last day.

She’s parents never despised She. She’s thoughts do

not congregate as cockroaches around She’s gyri and sulci.

She who is blessed with being She shall never know being me.

She does not know the need to mask thoughts behind abstract

prose and poems, behind a broken pentameter with awkward

metaphors, She does not convolute her will to buy a dress.

I think, therefore She is. She thinks, I wish, so I no longer am.

She who could never be I, and I who should be She.

I know well the need, and deeply hate the want, for me to be She.