I go to work and my coworker tells me
āIf I ever saw a trans person in real life Iād kill āemā
I go home and testosterone dries sticky on my chest and
Tomorrow Iām goin to a punk show and screaming as if heād seen it
I scoop a black widow into my hands and cradle her small body to safety
I know sheās heard the same
āIf I ever see a spider, I will kill itā
And walking away I see a wasp whoās predominant diet is black widows and I wonder if I shouldāve taken her back home
I want to take a lot of girls back home, where I can watch and keep them safe
My work is full of black widow killing wasps and even more brown widows, which may look like theyāre in the same boat but they do just the same
Sometimes an ally is just another pair of teeth
A man I donāt know shows up at my work and smiles at me with that smile men wear when theyāre going to denounce you
And before I can even feel guilt for that assumption he tells me about how much I donāt know what Iām doing
And how the man before me was better.
He didnāt see what I was doing. He was just walking by. Hardly knew the man before me either but he knew he was a man
And he canāt know Iām one or Iāll end up a widow under someoneās shoe.
When Iām in danger and cannot help it a giant hand I cannot control carries me to my familyās house
Thinking stupidly that itās put me somewhere safe
And my dad talks on and on about how much he loves Trump
And I see that little man on the TV and hear in a voice that is half his and half my dadās
āDay ONE in office I will undo all of the Biden era lgbt rightsā
And my dads house is a warehouse full of wasps and brown widows
And I crawl home to safety and dream of dogs dying under wheels and of my loved ones meeting my work life and both those images have the same amount of blood.
I have 5 songs stuck in my head at once and itās 95 degrees and just as damn humid
And I know I heard once that manhood is pain but
I think what they meant to say is that manhood is blood
Cause Iām hearing the words and instead of dreaming of peace I imagine blood covered hands and think ābetter you than meā
And instead of laughing off another manās joke like I used to, nowadays I just get angry
And I know the phrase āwolf in sheepās clothingā the same way I know Iām āa girl playing dress up as a manā
Because the sheep are safe in their majority with their guard dogs and their fields
But the wolf is starving and being hunted and wearing that wool like itās anything close to a shield
And holding back itās fangs like they could ever see it as any less of a predator just because it behaves
And I think if I had to kill to keep what Iāve got then maybe Iām more okay with that than I used to be
I think of my friends that I love and of that black widow spider and of smiling strange men
and I know that if manhood is pain even after all this, then womanhood for me is nothing but death