BTT 32.2: HAIR–CUT–NON–TRANSITIONED

This is in response originally to a post by the Amazing Amaya at dVerse who has prompted us to “Bridge the Gap.”  The task is to start with one quote and then end with another quote from a different source and write a poem that bridges the two gaps.  My first quote is from Faulkner, my second is from Twain.  As you can guess, any prompt that summons for me the ghosts of Faulkner’s Bundren family (trying to get across rivers to bury their matriarch) is going to produce a certain longing for bridges.  Here is a link to Amaya’s prompt:  https://dversepoets.com/?wref=bif I am reposting it now also in response to HA’s (Anmol’s) dverse prompt in honor of PRIDE. HERE IS THE LINK: https://dversepoets.com/2020/06/16/dverse-poetics-on-pride/

Hair — Cut — Non —Transitioned

“It is as though the

Space between us

Were time:

An Irrevocable quality.

It is as though time

No longer running straight

Before us in a diminishing line,

Now runs parallel between us

Like a looping string, the distance

Being the doubling accretion of the thread

And not the interval between.”  

• From “As I Lay Dying”  By William Faulkner *

.

She calls my name as

I lift my head

It is my turn

To walk the short

Space with my sneakers instead of

Mules to carry me

Across the flotilla of

Silken spindles suspended

Between the lineoleum

And the air.

My heart has no

Answer to her question,

“How do you want it?”

And a thousand categories

Of unnamed impossibilities

Rush before me

In instant sequence.

A short curl to

Lift and frame

A small smooth face

Toward the light?

Or maybe today I say

I have changed my

Mind and life and leave

It all alone to grow

And thicken and

Cascade and fall

Down, down, down

To drape across carved

Narrow shoulders toward

A gently sloping waist.

It is not the

Weight of my body,

But rather the pull

Of countless tethers –

A face

A child

The long habit of simply

Breathing

That holds me

Anchored in the chair.

I feel a practiced

Acquiescence pass the

Boundaries of my lips to

Just keep it

Basically the same

As it was before,

And she begins the

Cadenced lifting and searching of

Dancing sharpened blades

Slicing and sifting

Out the layers of

Soft perseveration

Gathering in quiet multitudes

On the floor.

My eyes close and

I feel for a moment

Only the slow crawl of

A bullet pressing incrementally

Through my hair then skull

As gelatinous fimbria

Slosh open to receive

And then collapse

To close snugly around it

Holding its fire suspended

Right there at that spot

Lodged in my dysmorphic

Third Interstitial

Nucleus of my Damn

Anterior Hypothalamus

The heat dissipating as it

Lays down softly on a gray

Bed of stria terminalis

To wait and sleep and rest.

She opens my eyes with a question,

Do I like it, and

I perjure that it is just fine

And now I stand

Before the jury of my

Betters who hold out

Their hands cupped as if

Waiting to receive

That large river

And small raft

That once held our

Dear Huckleberry, but

Now carries me,

The inverse symmetry

Of his dream, the girl

Playing tricks with the

World from within a

Smiling empty shell,

Showing definitively that

Breathing and eating

And walking and working

Can all continue in constant

Perpetuity without the

Need for living

Among the shreds

Of torn letters

That will not be

Used to deliver

Into Bondage

Those who could be

Free.

I would, rather, one day hope

Just to be allowed to

Whisper quietly

To the wind and echoes

Of sleepless night

“All right, then,

I’ll go to hell.”  **

– Lona Gynt,  May 2018

Note:  This poem Bridges a quote from William Faulkner to a quote from Mark Twain.  “All right, then, I’ll go to hell,” from Huckleberry Finn is arguably the seminal point in American Literature when Huck decides not to turn Jim into the authorities, even though he thinks he will go to hell for helping Jim escape slavery.  LG

All rights reserved for text and phontos to Lona Gynt, May 2018

This is my Second Life Avatar. At the time I wrote this, this was the only way I could move through any type of world in a manner that felt like my true self. At the time of this writing, the gender dysphoria was about ready to kill me and I did not know how I was going to reconcile the imperatives of my religion and my culture with who I needed to be.

This is now. Let my hair grow, this is me. Alive, proud, and who I am.

ALSO THIS

2-21-2020:  I am pleased to announce that this poem has been published in “Sissy Fit”  Alabama’s only queer literary magazine.  It can be obtained through a subscription at the following link.  check it out and come have a Sissy Fit!  There is a lot of really excellent pieces in this Volume 1, Issue 1, and I am both grateful and proud to have contributed.

https://www.sissyfitlitmag.com/?utm_campaign=7bfe183b-ce05-4ae2-937d-62f4b6a8829e&utm_source=so&utm_medium=mail&cid=b67102ce-ba70-499b-8b7b-0a44f7517e36