— on the occasion of starting hormone replacement therapy

i imagined paperwork, sobbing, and a public blow up. 

instead, i’m being taught gentleness by a nurse practitioner

in how to inject my tummy fat with oil. what’s in a man?

when they ask if i’ve considered changing my name

they hit me with a both-eyed smile and i swell like an algae

tasting the first sunlight after winter – o, it really was dark

that whole time. i think about a text i got from an ex

last night. he told me that there is a girl in his head

who he thinks of and misses who was me and is me 

no longer. his words cut me with a fisherman’s carefulness

by which i mean they were made sharp enough to gut me

beautifully, in a way which let him take his favorite parts

home for himself.  And when anna is now AG soon to be

august. It’s like hm. And the feeling I feel is sadness …

i hate the red and tender thing that acted as if everything

was okay and texted him back. i think about severing

the spine of it, tossing it towards a boney discard pile

but god, i’m too clingy to let anything go to waste,

especially when it comes to the ugly of my wanting body —

graceless hips, dimpled rear, breast tissue plump with

yellow fat. before i take out my own knife, promise me

that you’d recognize me without these silly dressings

that to you, in a few months, my laugh will still be

my laugh, just dark like yours, and more my own,

don’t leave me.