Timeline

CW: This poem is about the author’s experience with top surgery, and includes a brief reference to a knife.

I. Am I certain this is real?
I fight to see past the
pearls in my eyelashes
and the carbonation in
my throat. The curves of
my signature pull me along
as I urge the globe to spin
faster.

II. I feel the knife poised already.
To carve, to excise, to bleed.
To [re]build, to [re]forge, to
[re]claim. May it strike true,
and cut sweetly.

III. Fear.
Joy.
Bubbles.

IV. I’ve never understood the
adage that beauty is pain.
At least, not until today. A
little cliche, perhaps, but it’s
a simple truth on my tongue
that tastes of honeycomb.
The pearls have returned
and they sing their iridescence
as I trace my fingers over
my skin. Finally, my skin.
A purifying flame dances over
my eyes and warms my hands.
I sleep soundly.

V. We didn’t rip the bandage off
so much as lift it gently. Peaks
and valleys, excavated and
glistening beneath a velveteen
sky filled with newly-born stars.
That which was taken from me
has made me whole again. In a
pocket between gilded mirrors
I see an infinity: Me, Me, Me,
each Self dripping in opals and
the pearls that have rained
down from my lashes to settle
like freckles on my chest.
In my infinite reflection, there is
love burning in a thousand pairs
of eyes, awe painted across a
thousand yards of skin. And I
am at the center, singing to a
crowded amphitheater as both
audience and star performer,
under a spotlight of moonbeams
and carbon and crystalline time.