Dialectic Irreverence to Dysphoria

Dialectic: The process of bringing two contradictory truths into synthesis
For example, full acceptance, and desire to change
Irreverence: Sauciness, disregard of things that are usually taken seriously

This poem is called Dialectic Irreverence to Dysphoria
(it’s a trans poem about my body)

Home
for me
would be a chest that’s all muscle
A bust of firmness and power
A voice that roars or sails in falsetto,
the same 4 octave range I had before testosterone, moved down an octave
Beastly legs that flutter or flurry across the dance floor
And between them,
The depends on the day or the dream
My brain thought I had a penis until I had sex
and couldn’t PIV [penis in vagina] like my subconscious expected
Thanks to some insightful incisive lovers and hella community support,
I LOVE my c***
[c***, by the way, is the only word encapsulating all aspects of “female” genitalia; I use it honorifically]

But I realized a few years ago
after a series of dreams in which I had a perfect, medium sized, beautiful c***
That maybe …
…
…

I get excited
Because I want one
because having one would feel so RIGHT
Not like (strap-on) loving to  **** **** **** right,
Like…
…
…
and hit a painting on the wall

I don’t know why I need this
my brain is just fricking convinced I have a penis
and I literally relearn I don’t on the daily
But my c*** and I are so fricking happy we Are Not breaking up

I’m polyamorous with my genitals
If I could waive a transformation wand I’d have a penis just above my vagina,
some balls I could magic on when I was in the mood
I think if we could put our bodies together like we put together Mr. Potato heads
there’d be a few of us who’d feel at home in that option

There’s a part of me who would love to rest in the big comfy, cozy king size bed
laden with pillows and poofy quilts that I imagine this body I just described would feel like
(Cis people: y’all live in this home, right?
Bodies that feel like 800 thread count sheets
a warm bubble bath?)

In real life my chest flexes strength and it’s pliable as hell
On top of my pecks, two little gopher borrows whose gophers only pop out for the right gardener
My voice is a cute guinea pig in a really small cage
Lost an octave when testosterone moved it down,
And another when I almost died and they had to trache into me,
(Vocal chords, like guinea pigs, are happiest in pairs
But one of mine got paralyzed so now I’ve got one lonely guinea pig in a 2 octave cage)
My legs are definitely beastly, dragons spitting glitter fire
Between them, insert my band’s song “… ”
I’m an adventure
Gophers, guinea pigs, and dragons

I reject the dysphoria binary of home versus adventure
I am in the serenity of soaring on open wings
There is joy in this dialectic irreverence to dysphoria
A co-creation of all of us
Lovers, family, community
We accept the comfy cozy bed we might imagine a body home could feel like,
and we irreverently kick off from the nest

we create embodied euphoria

And we fly

I think it’s the magic in this flight that made trans people the shaman, the medicine people,
in societies going back to the beginning of humanity
The trans body
is dialectically irreverent to intelligibility
The trans body is uncategorizable,
divine mystery
We are question marks
ending every assured assertion about ‘biological’ sex

Our bodies live in the place every person finds when they drop the script handed them

And search for holiness