MY REFLECTION HAS BEEN TRICKY LATELY
(After X by Davey Davis) CW: anti-trans violence, suicide, disordered eating, and medical cissexism
by Cavar
I.
At the center of my sternum is a wine-toned bead.
It is my sharp tumbling trans*.
*zit zapped shedding light.
*muddle and lift.
*ocean of cut
*nails *bind by wire
calamitystrung.
II.
I extract my be
longings be
for the stammering
state.
Centurion walks
distrustful.
My freight glitters my slant-
rhymed fear.
III.
I carved in
To my chest and I made
It an
I
am the dangerous one.
With fingers I give the belt
To my surfacing tenderbones
set my cogent to its sternest
gauge
A zit
zapped w [merciless]
slight
[wet hard implicated]
IV.
Oh rough story of my sight
hitched the blood to my trans for
bidden and rightless
rough in the hunched seize of my
longing.
At any rate, escape is relative.
I mean only to explain
the entropy of the legible:
V.
Sometimes, names are tombs
For other names.
Notes:
The title of this poem, as well as the line “at any rate, escape is relative” are repurposed from X.
The line “[wet hard implicated]” is borrowed from Morgan M. Page’s blurb of X.
[sarah] Cavar is an anti-genre writer, PhD candidate, and instructor of undergraduates on both u.s. coasts. Their debut novel, Failure to Comply, is forthcoming with featherproof books (2024). Cavar is editor-in-chief of manywor(l)ds.place, and has had work published in The Offing, Split Lip Magazine, Nat. Brut, Electric Lit, and elsewhere. More at www.cavar.club, librarycard.substack.com, and @cavarsarah on twitter.
