They say a manual pump will help me catch the letdown— the milk that seeps from the other breast when my baby suckles, milk I catch now in a blue cloth I drape over his body, then toss in the wash. They say if I catch the letdown, maybe I
We speak of what we want in our next life, the lacks in this one. More adventurous, one says. More kind. I say, I wish I’d spoken up more. We draw line charts of our fulfillment over time. Then she says close your eyes, picture your own death. We
For a while my mouth didn’t close and I had to eat pizza with a fork. This is where people interrupt and say what do you mean, your mouth didn’t close? and I take my two hands, wrists together, fingers apart, and show how my jaw closed in
What makes me cringe isn’t saying how many men I’ve fucked or lifting my shirt to reveal hairy breasts that she—trans-competent— resolutely only calls “chest.” It’s what slips out when she presses powdered-latex fingers into the flesh over my heart: “I kind of want
I was a Buddhist then, and never asked for anything. I chanted each day, Desires are inexhaustible, I vow to put an end to them and I wanted to be pregnant with a fierceness beyond reason. Enough to stop T and let my body go alien, enough to let countless
“You’re so brave,” says the white-haired old bear, because I’m standing here naked with everyone’s dick swinging below their vodka soda. “What a journey.” He says he’s never seen a body like mine except in porn, then smiles: “You’ve got balls, kiddo.” This happens
Changing a menstrual cup in the men’s room is hard only because you were supposed to be six months pregnant by now, supposed to have learned to puke here instead. But bleeding is all you know. Cough to cover the squelching sound when you pull it out, or don’
A dress patterned like seventies carpet. Saucy skirt cut on a bias, giving glimpse of hairy thigh. Pit hair sneaks out around spaghetti straps snaking to breast-sized triangles, grasping more air than flesh. I proffer my melon salad to suspicious eyes. But you said you were trans. In one