makes good

the electric razor is a gift

from a retired circus clown,

a former dominatrix,

and i my tongue doesn’t know

how to for the words to 

ask if she’ll put her

cigarette out on the 

tender flesh of my shoulder blade

where no one else can see

i have only not been a girl

in a way i now have the words to

express for two years

when i stretch a plastic shopping bag 

over the dirty bathroom sink and

watch my hair fall into it

starting at the back of my neck,

where my father used to hit me with an

open palm and tell me to ‘stand up straight,

goddammit!,’ not knowing, nor caring, that the

slouch was to hide my 4D cup size,

my hand goes numb from the buzzing of

the electric razor

part of me wonders if i keep going

down deep enough, if there will be

some unblemished part of me that

doesn’t cry out to be a real boy,

that will make my parents still love me?

my hands shake, and i long to be

a grown man, years from now,

miles from either of my parents houses,

shaving my face and then my head

alone in a bathroom in a home that

no one else can lay any claim to,

clad in boxers and bunny rabbit slippers,

chest scar grinning back at me in the mirror

from where a handsome surgeon cut me

open from armpit to armpit and made

goddamn sure i wouldn’t die as

anyone’s daughter