estrogen, progesterone, spironolactone, estrogen, progesterone,
I need a new tattoo. A bird in the shape of an angel on my back, a form that rolls and folds against my own – that moves both with and for me
What has preserved me these last few years is the feeling of being stitched, point by point, into a new body, one made up by the body of my body and the hands of another. To feel a foreign art carefully attached to my own
And if I am in this moment, it is not those wings that brought me here. My first respite from the world was not my mothers womb, but a trap: a snare that gnawed and gnawed until I was no longer whole. I have scars across my shoulders from the things I have escaped, and I am ready to see them burned
I want to be abandoned by god in reverse
//
I need a new tattoo. A bird in the sh
ape of an angel on my back, a form that rolls and folds the feeli
point by point, into a new body, one mad
the hands of another To fe
el a foreign ached to my own
brought me h My first respite
from thnot my mothers womb, bp:
a snare that gnawed no longer wh scars across mythe things I have escape
d, and I am ready to see them burnedtndoned by god in reverse
//
|
,. I a m a body
.,.foreign to my own mother : ||
a scar across god I /
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sterling-elizabeth arcadia (she/they) is a trans poet and lover of birds. her work has been published in poetry.onl, HAD, New Delta Review, and elsewhere. she is a first year MFA in creative writing at Rutgers–Camden. this poem is part of a series of burning haibuns (a form invented by torrin a. greathouse), the first of which can be read here: https://www.poetry.onl/read/ster-el.
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