Why does a tranny cross a yellow brick road?
By Mx. Asher
Everything ends.
My five minutes behind a microphone.
The vileness of Presidential pedophiles.
The bad habit of saying I love you from a youthful after-sex brain.
Red hats and alligator crowns.
Our tears after cuddling dogs. . .
the cuddles end, too.
Everything ends,
our joy, our pain, our harm, our hope,
our lives.
But death only plays after lungs open by screaming.
A long-life greets us in the form of frail bones and a failing heart.
A phoenix meets rebirth by journeying through its own dust.
Ideas of liberation fly
when a Black trans sex worker’s
fed-up fingertips caress a brick
ripped from the foundation
of a communal stone wall.
We’re in this space together.
To get to you,
I spent a decade starving
to build the queer history
that’s about to be obliterated.
I’d be pissed but,
I’m
choosing
deep
breaths,
because everything,
ends.
I wrote it all down-
wage theft,
rejection,
heartbreak.
I shared it as pain,
yelling at open mics.
But the performance ended,
and someone pointed out “there’s hope in your anger.”
I traded spewing for songs.
Who I am feels wet on my fingertips now,
like holding a rotating globe pushed through a waterfall,
threads of blood
broken by droplets grinding
coal into beauty,
diamonds into ash,
rubies into fields of grass.
When this poem ends,
I’d like to saunter
amongst the kisses of your calluses,
the odor of daylilies
littered throughout the origin story
of how you came to be
here with me.
But please-
don’t flip to your last page yet.
I want to touch the hesitation of dashes-
admiring your semicolons;
those red-herring ending of lines. . .
on mountaintops of graceful motions.
Don’t skip to an unsatisfying end
either/
Write love notes in the margins
so those who burn books
are haunted by a charred soul
alchemized into the gentle giggle
of a trans child.
She’ll get to scratch syllables,
her earnest innocence
dedicating her work
“to my dead cat.”
Rest in peace, Rufus.
Don’t get me wrong.
My character isn’t afraid of conclusions.
I fear your impact,
laughter, grace, smile.
Our connection
reveals fear as grief.
I already miss
not being here
in community
with you.
So let’s take our time;
to lovingly cradle the dead conscience of relatives,
pour lakes from our community urns into the infinite free hugs of oceans,
host dance parties on graves,
steal-the-blanket, sashay, pontificate, fuck, hyperfocus, flip tarot cards, rest,
spill our guts out writing and repeat,
and before it all ends:
Why not
scream at some dictators,
expose the frailty of failing hearts,
burn it down,
throw bricks,
and feel the hope
in what it means to be
trans and alive.
Mx. Asher (they/them) is a trans and neurodivergent spoken word artist, poet, memoirist, sexual assault survivor, and former sex worker. Having worked professionally in government, advocacy, and elections for the past twenty years, they focus on vulnerable storytelling and personal experience to transform current events into emotionally resonant work. They have performed at numerous events and are a teaching artist at LitArts RI, the leading support network for the community of Rhode Island writers.
Photo credit: Photo by Karly Jones on Unsplash.
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