you are not my x
I do not care for your titular ploys.
you are not my x
and I will not call you so
we were never together (not really)
and I do not care for your titular ploys.
I remain
but only as your continued benefit
to us, creatives,
youth
as we desperately
find a place for ourselves
that doesn’t end
in loss
struggle
paycheck to paycheck for until we die.
for until the end.
in the world of scheming things
this does not matter
we us
do not matter
this is why we struggle
this is why we refuse
to leave.
we lack an assemblance of control that we crave with desperation (please) and so we invent it ourselves.
I will not call you x
out of sheer stubbornness, humor
or perhaps to sulk
in the delicious irony
of a trans man refusing
to call a website by a new name
Hank Cunnington (he/him) is a queer transgender writer living in the wastelands of Washington with his fiancé, dogs Blossom and Harley, and cat Shrimp. He has a Bachelor's in Creative Writing and currently works in higher education. He runs a small business with his mom in Ocean Shores, Washington, and hopes to one day spend all of his days writing words by the water.
