The Outsider, or Ode to My Gender Dysphoria

There is just something about 

a cigarette and a cool breeze 

after a night of dancing. 

The DJ flipped to their b-sides - 

or whatever the digital equivalent of a b-side 

may be - and the crowd made 

an exeunt upstage. The smoke of the 

American Spirits Blue serpents through my lungs, 

lifting me into the night sky. 

It’s no wonder we use dance and tobacco 

to speak to the gods, for I felt them 

blossoming inside me that night. 

I make eye contact with 

the bouncer, who had just finished 

retelling my anecdote about 

the straight sorority girl 

who asked me to leave the other night 

because I was “dancing too good 

and it was making the other boys 

look bad.” I make eye contact 

with him, and he raises his glass to me.

At this point, he doesn’t even 

card me anymore. My 

polka dot jacket and pretty, bright eyes

have become my calling card. 

I’m approached by two women, 

both too pristine to be queer. 

And if they were, they clearly worked 

any which way they could to 

pamper the hand that fed them. 

I personally can’t relate. 

Straight queerness is a luxury 

my kind is rarely afforded. 

They praise my eyeliner 

and my wig 

and my dress, while yas kween’ing me into internalized anti-monarchism. 

They ask to take a photo 

with me and lament how they 

just wish more men could be like me, 

just so thoroughly and 

unapologetically confident in their gender 

that they dress and act 

however which way they want, 

though, of course, they would 

never actually date one of these men. 

“Oh, no, I’m not actually-” 

Oh, and it’s just so awesome being here. It’s my birthday, you know, and, this is really funny, like so funny, I never even knew there was a gay bar here. In fact, I thought gays didn’t even exist in the Midwest, I thought y’all just sorta sprouted up on the coasts like multicolored beans. Hehehehe. Get it, multicolored, like rainbow - Ah, I’m learning so much! Especially from all you drag queens, all you cute little boys and girls dressing in your little costumes and doing your cute little dances, being your baddest bitchiest selves, fuck yeah! I didn’t see you on stage tonight. But you must be a drag queen too, what with all that makeup and your girly clothes and whatnot. There’s not really any other reason for a boy to do that. Unless you’re a pervert, haha! Just kidding! And I’m getting along with y’all so well, you might as well call me a fag hag. I can say that right? Oh, I’m sure I can, I’m an ally, that practically puts me in the community. A for Ally, am I right? I’m just so- 

I exhale the smoke through 

my nostrils like some stripling chimera.

I agree to do the photo, anything 

so this carking, caricatured calamity of a conversation can 

cease and catapult its way 

into Apollo’s dwelling. 

The flash germinates like the 

shock wave of an atom bomb, momentarily blinding me. 

When I come to, I’m in Aethiopia 

at the turn of the calendar era, 

as if that flash sucked me 

into a temporal maelstrom. 

The girls are there again, 

appearing to me as harpies. 

They brandish my penis for full exhibit,

bind my breasts into oblivion, 

and brand my face with XY. 

Upon the same rock that 

trapped Andromeda am I chained, unable to shave my 

endlessly weaving body hair or consume 

my sesame and elderberries. 

In two fortnights, they gift me with 

a vanity and say in the magma 

voice of my Henrietta Higgins, 

Look upon thyself and declare thou art a womyn. Nay, thou aren’t the Daughter of Elysian but the Creature of the Black Lagoon. Thy Geinian attempts into snatching and mimicking womynhood are not requests for inclusion, but bellows for eugenics. There never were any sesame or elderberries, were there? Thou periodically administered rohypnol over and over and over again to trick thyself into femininity. We do not tether thee to our cause so that thou may bereave from us in its calamity. Thou art a misogynist, thou art a rapist, thou art a ripper, thou art a body snatcher and necrophiliac. But thou shalt never be a womyn. 

From the abyss rose the Cetus, 

bearing the head of Blake’s Flea, 

which gnawed at my limbs 

and slurped up my intestines, 

castrating me in seconds. 

Through the breathless agony, 

I blinked in heavy multitudes 

until before me my eyes opened 

to nightclub bathroom. 

There again was one of 

the girls, her yellow top drenching 

with cheap tequila and her 

distorted makeup glistening from 

the midsummer night. 

She misgendered me again 

as she pushed me aside to 

use the sink, ignoring her friend 

vomiting Ouranos’ sea-foam in the corner. 

When she gazed into the mirror, 

her face morphed into a red 

poinsettia and then a Venus flytrap. 

She snapped at me playfully, 

and I scurried off outside to 

the balcony again. I attempted 

to light another cigarette, but the 

Bic was jammed. I huffed and 

stepped into the sultry, 

illuminated night, 

feeling drunker, moroser, 

and grislier than before.