Right Arrow OR Click Sprite to read the next poem Left Arrow to go back. - Thank you to Leopard, Skylar, May and Toko for critiquing these poems. I am thankful for you all. Thank you to Recca who read these poems for fun and held me as I lost my mind over ‘Hamlet Grieves.’ It was my first time writing a villainelle and it was giving me so much grief. Also for all the support for ‘Spider Bites,’ which was my classwork I considered submitting before we realized together all the tension was lost if I made that piece scratch appropriate. Thank you to Joelle Taylor, whose poems inspire my every one, and for telling me the best way to write poems is to feel them and also for telling me there's no such thing as an ego that's too big. I hope to one day see Maryville on the stage and to carry my history as a trans guy with me through my writing like you do for lesbians. There are a lot of personal poems in this collection. I think they were doomed to be because to quote “All I ever seem capable of writing poems about are transgender and Hamlet.” I can't write a love poem to my beloved partner but oh man, can you catch me writining sonnets about my TERF mother LOL. On the topic of my TERF mum, the first poem is probably the most intensely personal I won't get into specifics but women and body hair am I right or am I right?! I do fear often that these poems being so personal and based off the trans experience, won't carry through to the cis reader. But my good friend whose non-binary said they understood the poems and the reactions by trans readers has affirmed that when they have some impact. Uhm. I think that's all I need to say. Thank you for reading this
