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letra de birdsong, pt. ii - t. thomason

i remember a couple of years back, this kid in singapore asking me after a gig how i cope emotionally with being misgendered all the time. they were a thin wisp of a kid, in their first year of college and tender all over, i could tell tucked into an armchair in the multi-purpose room on campus wearing a scarf pulled up around their chin and mouth and hiding wing-like shoulder blades and collarbones under an oversized jean jacket even in all that heat and humidity. i realized as i was always saying it out loud that i try to be imprevious now to someone using the wrong pr-noun for me. i tell myself it is an irritant at best like a black fly behind my ear when i’m trying to put a fishhook on my line, not even a mosquito, and certainly not capable of taking any of my flesh, like a horsefly would. i notice it, but it is easily swatted, and crushed. it does not touch me inside in any way and simply gives me intel on the person who is speaking to or about me. it helps me categorize the speaker, no more, no less: a friend, ally, stranger, unhip layperson, oblivious cis, lazy host, intentional foe. good to know. i tell myself all of these things. it’s hard to see a kid in pain like that. it’s important to say the right thing when asked a question like that. but sometimes there really is,’t a right thing to say. what i really wanted this kid to know is that they are going to need to somehow build up the callouses around their heart just a little. that they cannot and should not ever give up their power so easily to another, shouldn’t put any shred of their own self-worth into the sloppy hands of a stranger or anyone. i wish… i wish i had told them to stand up full inside themselves and imagine that tthey are protected by a full suit of shimmering armour made of feathers, made of sequins, made of six hundred skins they have already had to shed to become what they are right now in this minute. i wish i had told them to live inside their feathered armourskin with such surety and self-love, that who they really are insidecould never be taken by any words stuck to or shot at them from outside of themselves ever, not ever, no way

just let me change
just send me away
send me out to the farm
send me away
send me away
send me away
just let me change
new body, new name
new body, new name
new body, new name

today i put on my tights with the trans flags on both shins and picked up my neon orange skipping rope, and headed out into our little stretch of concrete in the sun out back. the neighbour from up the street slowed his big truck right down to a roll and lowered his tinted window halfway to speak to my partner and i like he does some days. “i can’t belive you ladies can jump like that in this heat.” he said. i regarded him from inside of my armourskin and ruffled my feathers just a little so i looked bigger, and so i could skip higher. then i did three double unders in a row, without breaking a sweat
my new name is sir never sirred
pleased to meet you

- t thomason

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