“I was spiraling out, & she was so alive”
When I work the coffee bar mermaid style in the center of my city,
I often pull tickets with her face on them. Red, spiraling out,
red and spiraling out… I try casually to be witty
and ask another barista to call out these beverages.
I find it hard to say her name aloud. Or at least, to speak of her amongst others.
The small printer squeaks and births another ticket. It’s Ash*** again,
ordering a Taylor Latte (nonfat, caramel, hot).
A squeak, a tiny paper, and it’s Ash***, again,
ordering a quad over ice (medium cup, black, EXTRA ice).
Always making me wonder, what’s up with the extra ice?
Except, a squeak, a ticket and it’s fucking Ash***,
getting the latest promoted holiday latte
(at the moment: pistachio with brown butter sprinkles).
She keeps coming round no matter how hard I try to live without her.
Ladybugs nest in my esophagus. Huddling together, their closeness is a reply
to preserve her memory. Yet, I wish they would migrate south now.
Ain’t that where she’s meant to be anyhow? The freeloaders feed on red hair dye,
red varsity letters, and red lip liners still dispensing glam despite having expired in 2016.
I paint my waterline. The irritation is a reminder that she lingers on in Others.
Never having been old enough to freely pour her own glass of pinot grigio,
routinely, I will prepare her a cuppa. To signal to her recollection that I think of her.
She was that girl, my girl, the moment. Prominent in any room she was queenly.
I can’t believe I used to nurse her here, in this body. Which, don’t mistake this
as a cue to my womb. She was my captain. She “kept it real, despite a fired up world.”
Reddened panties monthly meant breaking that generational curse of teen pregnancy.
Meanwhile, failing at basic period safety… she sucked at changing her tampon.
Fully aware of when she was supposed to tend to such a matter yet a quiet supremacy
delegated the prescribed social order of high school locker rooms and their students.
Who, unlike my dearie, were sustained in modes of safety she had no way of accessing.
I couldn’t understand why she had to change behind the shower curtains.
It embarrassed me to pass quickly by the rows of lockers, clothes in hand, to hide away.
Feeling like a creep, planting eyes to the linoleum, translating her presence into burdens.
Then! In contrast, everyone else, plainly stripping. Making easy the transfer of gossip.
The girls would chat regardless of a tit popping out or being mid underwear change.
Ash*** sweating, heart gearing up and off to the Boston Marathon at peak velocity,
seemed ridiculous. Hands flapping together, as silently as she was able.
Trying to shake out the fear and fury about herself while protected by anonymity.
A tic tic tic-ing time bomb of gender. Becoming hidden was always easy.
A fast, one motion pull across the bar, and whoosh! Alone and safe.
Stepping out though was dreadful. Ash*** couldn’t understand what needed to unfurl.
She thought it was a Teen Vogue-like self hatred. She thought she “just…
wanted to be different” because she “wasn’t like other girls”
And that is a valid bundle of fear. But my Ash*** wouldn’t understand things better
until finding FTM YouTube. HA. Oh honey, be careful what you wish for!
It’s true, you aren’t like the other girls, you are red with rage, red with revising,
and red with playing on loop that one Lady Gaga song, the lyrics of which you wrote down
in your notebook before an inpatient stay. Wanting in memory to be penning
“Make it all make sense… Does it all make sense?”
Living as her was so hard but I regret deleting so many old photos. She was beautiful and loving.
She gently guided me, first brushing my hair, then chopping it off, redesigning.
Distributing our self in a new way, we walked our body, somehow,
into a new understanding of flesh. Towards a new way of living in gender, life; a redefinition.
Ash*** made my blues turn gold, then further allowed my gold to finance an indigo.
I sip my wine peacefully knowing that the teenage girl-ghost that haunts me keeps it real.
Seriously so beautiful. Each time I read this, more and more stood out and came together.