Prayer for Transgender Summers

Summer comes for us all

Like a great gasp

And I am declared missing, reeling, swimming

In the heat and violence each day brings.

Oh Lord, July days are just like February now,

And the despair is endless -

Just with more shining skin.

Not all of us get to survive to the fall,

And I feel the heaviest weight on my shoulders.

Lord, I will forever mark this year

As the one I learned to wear a binder,

My chest flattening into nothing

Like a magician disappearing

Another false self.

I was so happy, I couldn’t stop flashing you all,

Grinning splitting crowing “dude, look at this!”

Like an overripe peach still hanging onto the branch.

God, please don’t let me fall

When I hit the ground,

Let me keep going in July’s torrid heat.

I love my body most

When it’s changing.

I’m stumbling, but I can see.