How Long Shall I Hide?

my body breaks the
coffin. the coffin
is not my size,
not my fit.
masculinity
shall be buried
without my body.
i shall live more genders
than the number of desires
before i die.
— -
of loving
beyond bodies
L|G|B|T|I|Q
are words from a distant land,
distant from my body.
most lovers have only touched me
in a foreign language
and it still hurts
so i go back to shams
from whom i am learning
loving

even if i must,
let me hide
in tenderness
for we know
that the summer sun
burns the plants

who lives on your skin?
mine is covered
in the store from my mother
the market makes
only combed cotton
for me
hence i say,
capitalism
is a misfit
on/in my body
love,
does it fit you?

desire
will not wash
the blood on my skin
your violence reeks within me.
my father’s slaps are amplified
does the violence leave a stench?
urine, at times
me desire is despaired
in fear
skin is burning
alone
and memory
does not have a home

beard and lingerie
cannot be lovers
their destiny
was written
at the hands
of gender
this wall is my lover
for it is
empty
my body hair
is me, this lingerie
is not mine
come, flay my skin
for, indeed, i have sinned
but remember,
my angry tears
will be love letters
to the wrongs

histories guard
the entrances
to every
body
this is no home

i have never worn
a plucked flower
on my skin
the fallen
is enough

silent

the market
shuns the ‘delicates’
i am not as pretty
as the language of
capitalism
— —
“Ud Jayega Hans Akela”
there is no home to go to,
an alone bird takes the first flight somewhere
to search for home
no journeys can happen without a home walking with me.
sleep resembles home and when morning comes, the bed becomes and alien breast soothing me.
each home i have known has withered to angst and anger.
inacceptance is the nameplate beside the doors.
my family loves me when i am sanitised of my sins they do not bear witness to.
an entered body cannot call me home. i refuse to let them.
every body i enter does not feel home. there are no homes without doors. not even bodies.
histories guard the entrances to every body.
“come back”, my parents say. they call me only in my dreams.
unanswered calls tremble as vibrations in their pockets. “this is not a lodge”, my brother says.
i ask, “what is the rent to be paid?”
he walks away.
when i come home, i leave a lot outside the door,
hidden in shoes like the house key for an unreceived guest.
home did not cry its loss of me. my brother did.
my mother, she cried when i entered again.
a friend asked her in secrecy, “are you happy he is home now?”.
she answers, “yes.”
“do you know he isn’t?”
mother answers, “i know. but time will help him”
— -
with and in tenderness, vulnerability and intensity
with love,
Soz
Originally published at Miss Lingerista.
