The building says: you’re welcome here
but only if you leave your real name at the door.
I unzip myself. Step out.
Hang the flesh on a nail beside the mailbox.
Someone calls it performance.
I call it Tuesday.
/ The man with a flag for a mouth says:
You are the miracle of assimilation. /
He means:
you\'ve almost vanished correctly.
Your hair behaves. Your hunger is bilingual.
I write an essay on the kitchen table
titled: *How to love a country that keeps you as backup.*
Footnote: I mean this tenderly.
There are parks where the birds
still sing the names of forgotten lovers.
You can hear it if you press your ear
to the mouth of a payphone.
A voice says:
You’re not real unless you’re legible.
so I erase myself slowly,
like pencil graphite on wet skin.
A teacher once told me:
the body is political.
So I stopped using mine
unless it was urgent.
*
Last night, I dreamed
a hallway full of mirrors.
Each one said:
This is not your fault.
But I woke up
and society was still there—
wearing my hoodie,
asking for a cigarette,
calling me
brother, beast, border.
And I—
I answered to all of it.