SIGNS

PAIN JOURNAL ENTRY

it’s hard to convince people of something they can’t see.

but i was trained to deceive myself.

there’s no prescription strong enough to bring back wasted time.

last night i got a knock on my door.

the neighbor.

“i can see you through the window.”

i leaned against the doorframe of apt 202 wearing 8 in pleasers and a black bob wig.

the jig is up.

the womb. the chrysalis. the first apartment i lived in alone. i started HRT here. healed from top surgery here. wrote a record here.

“sorry about that.”

“i’m not.”


he came back an hour later and asked me out.

how should i tell him he’s in love with a costume?

[redacted] didn’t know i was a boy either. even when he saw me on set in a suit and beard.

but i was naked when he screamed at me for not cumming fast enough.

“am i not a man?”

no one he met on his world tours told him he was lousy in bed.

till me.

my parents screamed too.

“get the fuck out of my house.” = D

“you don’t need a mother anymore.” = M

it’s ok to cry.

i’ve stopped praying for god to save their souls.

she slipped and just like that

i felt like i lost my γυνὴ περιβεβλημένη τὸν ἥλιον.

it’s ok to cry.

she’s probably right.

sometimes i imagine what it’s like to feel loved like a child

and not hated like an adult.

i imagine the woman i used to be

died giving birth to

a bouncing baby boy.

in her arms, i am loved

and always will be.

i can still cry, by the way.

despite what all of them said.

ps. i woke up one night from a dream with this chorus playing in my head like a prophecy.

Savannah Packard