Glass kitchen table,
mom’s hurricane voice,
may lightning strike me down
into smoke and stopped heart.
Dad sat in his library
of whispers,
let mom do all the talking.
They found the blue stars
on my back,
the faded hourglass
on my left calf,
the uneven lined celtic star
on the right one.
This led to different parts
of my body,
the ones that tied knots in me.
They’d never heard
transgender before,
made me choke out
the definition.
I drew the truth
from my stomach
before it dissolved in acid,
stuck to every bubblegum lie
I’ve swallowed.
After the empty tissue box
came the hug.
She held onto someone
who never left,
I fell into her grief.
In the unfiltered morning,
the sun came out.
–
James Roach (they/he) is a poet who just moved from the Pacific Northwest to Philly.