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Poetry by aeon ginsberg

I’m not worried at all because I’m covered in jesus blood thank you very much

At a certain point seeing is believing but we hold the holes gifted into our body like children raised or gifted to us in ways that only trauma can gift something. Name five things in the room that you can see. My flesh and the way it holds and stretches against a form beloved unto me, a form at times not good enough, not big enough to be small. Did you know holes are the only thing we can’t see the center of but count by numbers regardless? Surgical scars and scars less trained to last but last anyways. On my knee there’s a residual discoloration from a time the spite of a god who created pleasure and the persecution holed inside of it split my body open on the old planks outside my father’s house that carried us into the creek, over the creek. I see what I’ve done to me. I see what you’ve done to me. I’m covered in jesus blood and I see it on everything I wear. My surgeon says it’s made of dead cells. My surgeon has said my vagina is made of dead cells. My surgeon lowered my vagina a casket into the grave hole of my body. I can feel your curiosity. I can feel my skin on my skin and still think it yours. I can name four things I can touch, can you? When you are socialized one thing and grow up to be another you learn to hear while you hear. A woman tells me she likes my tattoos which means she no longer feels threatened by how I choose femininity, because I have to choose it. Neutrality is difficult until it’s time to misgender a transwoman. Blessed are those who do not see and still believe. When my boss told me I was the first trans person he had ever met what was said is that I was the first trans person he had ever listened to. They say god removed the first man’s ribs to create the first woman. In high school there were rumors you could remove your lower ribs to fellate yourself. If I take a filet knife to my ribs can I see if I do smell like fish or will you tell me? Do you do grounding exercises when you’re scared? do you ever think about all the things you’ll never know? Did you know holes are the only visible thing that exists only because of what is around it? That’s a lie but it sounds close enough to the truth around it that it could exist. Name one thing you can taste. Do you think the apostle Thomas touched the holes spread across Jesus flesh? Do you think Thomas studied the punctures and wondered how they would fold over? I wonder what he did with his fingers after. The first time I put fingers inside of the cavity created where once there was no cavity I licked them. Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man a to fish and he’ll eat for his life. Make a man a fish and she will tell you five things you can see, four you can feel. three you can hear, two you can smell, and one you can taste. Blessed are those who believe me without seeing. Lucky are those who get to see anyways.

POEM IN WHICH I TRANSITION WITH THE HELP OF MY HOLOBIONT SELF

Is it hot? Does it look good? Are you proud to
serve it?

The body does not rise without what it carries.
Who cares if I was always feminine, or animal,
because I am that way now.

My body is a legion of it’s lived experience.
I live because my body has been lifted into life
by everyone around me.

I would thank whatever let me be carried by you
but instead I will thank you for carrying me;
I will thank myself for letting this body fall into your arms.

No one is free until we are all free.
Inversely, we are all detained if one of us is detained.
I say that a guillotine is too good for the police and i mean it.

Did you know there’s a squid that will die
unless it gets bacteria to work it’s light producing organs?
I want to be bacteria in legion: I want to illuminate.

The body does not rise without what carries it,
which unfortunately means
I am lifted by what has buried me.

One star review of the prison I live in,
Its burn down.

Five star review of the body I am a part of;
If it doesn’t serve us
burn it down.

aeon ginsberg

Twitter: @aeonfx
IG: @aeon.f.u.x

Up next Poem: "Thank You For Trusting Us" by Salvatore Difalco Poem: "Officeparks (The Serpent Convinces David Harridan to Sell It All)" by Noam Hessler
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