Content Warning: Mention of blood, gender dysphoria
Pull the pearlescent pink muscle in my throat
stretch it far like salt water taffy
What flavor is it? You tell me.
Bubblegum? Ruby grapefruit? Mocha cappuccino?
Blood? Sweat? Tear it apart and you tell me.
All I can taste is testosterone and tender tonsillitis
violet vibrational violence and magenta melody memories—
“Yeah but, do you feel like a man?”
(Sick, half asleep, and ten years-old on the couch
Dad would challenge me to drink as much orange juice as I could
then sit at the baby grand and ask me to sing
when I could push past the pulp
to hit that high C, he would draw
me a bath, the steam and bubbles clearing away the ache in my skin
but not the one in my head.)
Do you see the lump yet? Eve’s apple?
Sometimes I think I am finally choking
down the core for good
but it’s just another hair stopped for a moment
before sliding all the way to my empty stomach.
So no, I don’t feel like Adam yet.