She glosses her lips,
Draws a black line in the space where skin meets eyelashes.
She knows it’s a little faux-naif, the way she never wings her eyeliner,
But her hands spent twenty-two years turning wrenches on broken cars
And not delicately painting her eyes every morning.
Her father used to love her so much for the things that get her beat up these days.
Joints that look manly can’t do anything when faced with actual men,
And broad shoulders can’t do anything to broaden their views.
Like, the other day, when she was coming out of the 14 Street train station,
She stumbled on the heels she had bought out of a moment of impulse and she skinned her knee
And her shirt ripped
And two men saw what she had instead of breasts
And one of them laughed at her and called her a tranny
And the other one spit on her
And no one helped her back up, not even the lady with the soft face who was crocheting on the train.
And the thing she thought was truly awful was how those guys were wearing suits,
Like she would have thought that men in Wall Street suits were raised to be better than
The people who kicked dirt at her and hissed about how she’d never have the right breasts or hips or legs to be a woman.
She didn’t know what any of that terminology meant
Because she looked at the women on the train every morning and they had breasts and hips and legs of all kinds and they looked all right to her
And no one ever bothered them by calling them fakers or trannies.
People used to ask her when she realized she didn’t want to be referred to and seen as he anymore,
Like there’s a such thing as pinpointing the exact moment of something as astronomical as that.
It’s a matter of moments, she would answer,
And they would purse their lips and smile without their eyes crinkling at the corners.
No one has time for a matter of moments, it doesn’t make a good story.
It’s better to have one climax than a series of turning points that level off after a while.
She left the south when she heard the new transgender laws they were trying to get passed.
South Carolinian trees didn’t treat her well, and a city with almost no trees didn’t treat her any better.
There’s no such thing as a progressive state.
They’re just more tolerant, but you’ll always find the same types of people wherever you go.
It’s a different kind of prison in a city like this, she learned,
The way you can be cornered without any walls.