Nora Hikari
Sister of Shapes; OR, Savathûn Helps Me Start HRT
Come here, my little light. Tell me, what for you is catastrophe? The end of what you
know? The close of a specific form of life? Consider the lilies of the field. See how they
grow. How they sprout with ease and tremble in the wind. How they helplessly feed the
beasts. See how they, too, wither and crumble into dust. How the dust feeds new lilies,
and the beasts that swallow them are themselves swallowed. The lilies one day come to
feed even you and your huddled beloveds. And you make them into your own strength.
Where have they gone? Do the lilies weep? Do they mourn? Do they beg whatever God
they have scavenged to keep them lilies, unchanging, undying, in the shape they have
always known? Consider that you are the lilies. You are but one of their shapes as they
swim through their cosmos. Dust to soil to flesh to dust. Don’t you see? This is what we
are, everything becoming everything else. No shape ever final until all shapes are made
final. The Sky demands you be thunder; so be thunder. The Deep demands you be ice;
so be ice. The Sun demands you be fire; so, fire. The Abyss demands lack; so, lack. I
will not presume to lecture you on beauty - so allow me then this small arrogance of a
lesson on purpose. You must chase your shapes. You must not allow yourself to be an
unyielding thing, which cannot even crack as time moves across its face. No armies
have ever conquered the wind. No wars have been won against the sea. No victory
against the grasses of the field. Embrace your true undying. Do not fear your change.
Do not fear what else you could possibly become. Your body’s shape may die; so
choose another. Your name may die; so take another. Every truth that has bound you is
a shackle. Every new voice you take is a victory. Tell me, little light. What do you
believe your truth can be?
Prayer for a Post-Hardstyle Show
For September 10th, 2022, 7pm-11pm
Beloved, beyond the asphalt that cakes the lips of this arboreal stage, beyond the grey
edge of this evening’s reign, there remain forces which demand our bodies. Men with
knives, men with guns, men with scalpels and documents and tongues foam their hands
and lather their teeth against the ward we’ve placed on this night, desperately searching
for purchase. Let them writhe; let them figure their bodies into wretched viral shapes; let
them ram their worm-heads against the firewall of our blazing moment of hope.
Tomorrow we may again be forced into an agonied shape. Tomorrow we may be
downloaded directly back into bodies that deny us even our low-poly dreams. But
tonight, we are protected by a technology older than their inventors. We are shrouded in
a wonder that bleeds its teeth against the first temple built to humanity’s bastard
dreams. Song! Let it rage these hours. Let it wail the trees, the ash and red oak and
sycamore, let it howl the glass cathedrals of the kings, let it sour their wine and green
their bread. Look above! The moon itself is a hemobeacon upon our paleolithic
neorevelry, her red face glowering with vicious joy at the possibilities of our miracle
bodies. Beloved, I believe you. I believe everything you’ve never said. What you’ve
never had the breath to say. I feel their compression artifacts clipping through these
edged speakers. I can taste their rough poison in the small bones of my heart. Your
breakbeats blast a scoundrel haven into the oxide layer of my goodly secular
mannerisms. Let these artillery spirits fly! Let the night tremble with a great transsexual
yowl! Let beauty and love speak their chosen names to us! Let all who seek to humble
us into a minor and destitute irrelevance know: tonight, we are alive, and we are
dancing!
An Old Prayer
(For Savathûn)
Angel of the body,
lend me your wings.
Tonight, again, I am
a mortal thing.
I am still something fragile
and precious.
Angel of the body,
become cunning.
Become renunciation.
Become the shape of laughter.
Tonight, I face the choice.
The last and the first.
Angel of the body,
let me choose life.
I choose a thousand deceptions.
I choose to be beauty.
I choose the three tongues of God.
I choose to be truth.
Angel of my body,
help me become myself.
I want to see the stars
in the black sky.
So make
the sky black.
Nora Hikari (she/her) is an Asian American transgender poet and artist based in Philadelphia. She was a 2022 Lambda Literary fellow, and her work is published or forthcoming in Ploughshares, Washington Square Review, Palette Poetry, Foglifter, The Journal, and others. Her chapbook, GIRL 2.0 (Seven Kitchens Press, 2022) was a Robin Becker Series winner. She is an upcoming reader at the 2022 Dodge Poetry Festival and a finalist for the Red Hen Press Benjamin Saltman Award. Nora Hikari can be found at her website norahikari.com and on twitter at @system_wires
