SHRINKING THE VIOLET
on Gender Dysphoria & the DSM-5
when the stranger/doctor/voyeur
says give me some skin says hi says do you
have a marked incongruence between
your experienced or expressed gender
and primary &/or secondary sex characteristics
says do you have a strong desire
meaning do you have a strong desire to be rid of
says do you have a strong desire to be rid of
your primary &/or secondary sex characteristics
meaning do you have a strong desire for the primary
&/or secondary sex characteristics of the other gender
Other, other
I tell my shrink
but should I tell them I’m a tree half-climbed
or wrinkled up in time I am a liturgy I tried to die
once upon a cliff by the Red River
my body the smirk of a neighbor
my arm a bent cigarette useless to burn
my hand a wolf spider that catches the others
meaning I’m wary of pocket knives & weary of butterflies
meaning I would like to put my body out
meaning I saw the hair on his chin and wept
meaning I’m considering initializing change
when the stranger/ doctor/ voyeur says
do you have a strong desire to be of the other gender
a child doubles over the stubble
of grass waiting under winter
& the ice melts with the last emergency
contact in my phone—
weekly some body rubs
my body out & I disperse
the vial half full of a voice
I cannot drop into the undergrowth
when the stranger/ doctor/ voyeur says
do you have a strong desire to be treated as the other gender
do you have a strong conviction you have typical feelings
do you have the typical feelings & reactions of the other gender
I walk the moebius strip of interstate
imagine my first love’s clutch
the first time the tunnel in my body closed
& cut their body off in traffic
when some choir boy cued up you’re all nightingale pressed into barred window
you’re all flower posted up beside a grave
Do I have typical feelings?
Do I have typical reactions?
tonight if I cough up my breast
plate change offering gut wrenched
by the Mechanic’s fuck somebody’s
grammar’s got a hunch I ain’t
quite man enough & I’ll be damned
if Adam asks again you got a rib to spare for supper?
a last cup of sugar some boi could borrow
to pick the lock inside the stomach?
spring me out of here
our eyes closed up
in pairs because the flood
is coming crotch
wire pulled back
from the guardrail—
spilling transitional fluid
in Noah’s closed mouth
hallelujah
when the stranger / doctor / voyeur asks how long have you lived this way
meaning how long have you been subject
to passing at the truck stop or in public
I say the body more than oyster, egg,
a shell we can’t or won’t crack up
& you crack down on you desire
a user manual for my autonomy my vehicle
as if my agency needs to be calibrated
as if my agency is leaking fluid grlboygrlboy on the highway
when the stranger/ doctor/ voyeur asks
for all our bodies to come back in two’s
I will not diagnose anyone’s plans for Noah’s ark
but I’ll be building
will be busy
signaling to all my animals
who say they didn’t realize
that god’s flood was coming
soon
I’ll tell them burn their blueprints pinkprints scaffolding
under my breath which letters must I spellcheck
which boxes must I bury
to get the papers’ chorus over with
as if my agency is outta whack
& shaking on their interstate
worried about the truck flailing
into my space my stance my lane
I say safe space safe space safe space
can’t shut our eyes to sleep can’t stand
to hear that shut-I sound that flap
of skin over the soul I’m up all night
spinning around their slit-eye body
like a marble my brain circling the text
that says I am a sculpture, object, singular
circle cell as halo,
flesh & flush the body out
my neighbor’s feral cat my body frozen as a still frame
from a Dali drama where they slice the lid up like a jar lid
the stranger/ doctor/ voyeur who reviews me like a foreign film
as if I’m here to tell you for the first time about this
the cis-
subtitle our language
as if they just don’t see the difference
between an eyelid & a jar lid
as if they don’t remember
as if they pronouns ain’t grammatical
as if they can keep a lid
on my boygrlboygrlboy
as if some shrink holds my body’s future
like a violet cut between their pearly whites
EVERY GRRRL HAS A VISION OF HIR WARD-ROBE
He said my thighs were boyish,
big, said less to crush you with.
He claimed my body was a roadmap.
Complicated to read without clear-cut
direction, without consciousness, I turned
over like a cheek & found a cig-burn
on my back’s blade. He said I was a hot one,
crush of filtered, photo, semen’s spring.
Splayed across the front seat, cockblocked
view of the oncoming road. When he pulled
out & over on the shoulder, I skirted strangers’
questions. O ring cheap scar smoke eye gallop
tripping over six eyes, sex legs, crushed mouth,
nip slip, evidence, so many tongues, so many
Tongues. So many tongues to strip from shoes,
so many strings to take out bagged possessions.
Ward-Robe, white gown, white sheet, white page,
in the ward we ghost inhale & ghost exhale the thought
if only I was King here with my idle hands pulled on the shoulder
waiting for headlights to flick or brain-fire to be put out.
We put out & we live by promises of rings
& fingers in the right spot good job G strings
are prohibited inside the ward no strings
but men here laugh say fuck me baby as I beg
the nurse to leave me nightingales say here say have a
Quiet Room they cough up a cement cell they tell
me here come cry in do not threaten, call for help
I call for help over & over on the land line ask for the extension
of the agents of the arm of god my King says firecrotch. Says firearm.
Says fired, fired, fired. I fire all the men with reclaimed wood & hobblehorse.
Then, some patriarchal god sweeps in & tells themNo, I got your back.
If I turn back take back buy back tonight I won’t weep won’t
Weep))
My iris
is a waterbed
to poke a hole in
like a condom
would be broken
leak of fluid
am I really
just a boy turned over
like a mouth
a stone inside the park
that we flip over to find
some worms in there
the wormhole is
under my body’s
stone brim
like a furnace
flip me over
& I speak
so many tongues
My hobby: dress I kill & later tell it sorry,
sorry, sorry, sorry this my neckline con-
fessional why don’t you scoop out every
inch of fabric of my being / my lost sheep
little boy blue ball blue in the iris my ringed
pupil yes we clouded judgement vision this
here number you can call or even number you can be
perhaps statistic call tonight if you are lonely me myself
my hot line & my vein the roofie wafer body worm
hole wound-well-open Baptists dipped their hands
in me said O my idol-grrrl my idol how many licks
years does it / will it / take & does it take the edge off
take the edge off of a blotter / white the black-out
body out / to take communion tonight my bible curled
to ash a snake’s tongue splitting at the seams I locked
the four men in the fire though I only know the names
of three. Despite, for every crime I see Abednego won’t burn.
Originally from Louisiana, Brody Parrish Craig’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in TYPO, EOAGH, & New South, amongst others. They are currently at work curating TWANG, a regional anthology of transgender and gender non-conforming artists to debut in 2019. Brody Parrish resides in Arkansas where they organize with InTRANSitive, make coffee for strangers & craft with their fiancé.
1 Comment