Autistic gender failure tries to get a diagnosis
If they come for trans people, I will not be able to leave. I feel like a plastic mug, I am bound to certain places. My mother says I should not be afraid of the fascists. I ask my father if he still loves me if I cannot work. I tell my father that my gender differs from the one I was assigned at birth. It’s the same call. All my friends bring fidget toys to the plenum. We destroy the system on crip time. My mother sees no sense in visible resistance. I ask her how I can exist then I walk on bare feet and bite my fingernails. The welfare office wants to determine if I am eligible for getting a diagnosis. The welfare office wants me to kill myself. My friends and I gather around the neurobox. I can write you a poem with communication cards. I can write you a blackout poem out of welfare application documents. My friends and I we barely exist. My friends and I we exist barely. Head shorn, feet quite firmly on the ground. Today I wear nothing but a binder. I am a plastic mug, not easily broken.
Willow Bram Desjardins (they/them) is a writer from northern Germany, currently studying philosophy. Their poems revolve around queer embodiment, disability, and sometimes around ducks. They have work published in Corporeal and The Reprise. In their free time they are found crafting or hanging out at local goth events.
BACK TO ISSUE