you are not my x

by Hank Cunnington


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.