i have my father’s temper, my father’s eyes.

i keep my bloody birthrights in a clear glass jar.

all the things i’ve laid claim to with my mother’s fingers;

long, pale, five on each hand, like real people have.

I will liken the heavy clouds that pass over my land to grey matter

              before my body remembers the practicality of pain

The deciding factor in

whether or not I’d breach the boundary between binaries

was a gender neutral bathroom sign.

I heard someone belt a show tune in the shower while

another howled. Someone else took off their jeans, stuffed

One

It’s half past eleven, so

we find an epileptic street light & swap sweat

before I put my hands in your pockets &

tell you I feel like I’m in Riyadh with a roughcast of redsand on my tongue and camel skin beneath my feet