POEM IN WHICH I TRANSITION OUT OF HAVING ALL OF MY TEETH

                    by Aeon Ginsberg

yes,
estradiol and spirnolactyl, yes,
60 pills monthly, yes,
I am transitioning, yes,
I’m here about my missing tooth, yes,
transitioning is difficult, yes,
I fell and my tooth shattered, yes,
I could not find all of the pieces of it, yes,
I probably swallowed some, yes,
I know there is a chance it could become necrotic, yes,
death dreams of me too, yes,
death DMs me a wyd each time I leave the house, yes,
like the poet, yes,
I know the inside of me needs to be cleaned,
I know dirty areas more likely to be ignored, yes,
HRT stands for hormone replacement therapy, yes,
awake me from death-dreaming, yes,
call my pills candy for how they cavity my body, yes
cavity my cavity, yes,
numb my mouth away from itself, yes,
I understand the filling is temporary, yes,
please call me by anything other than my name, yes,
I’ll take your number, yes,
there are 32 permanent teeth in the mouth,
it is apt that you are pulling each of them out, yes,
outside the woman said her agenda was to return to bed, yes,
my gender is a return to bed,
return me to a place where I can lay,
I am used to the hands of an unskilled man in my mouth, yes,
I know this is temporary,
I know you are a Good Man because
I know Good Men by the way they invade themselves into others,
I’m sorry my body inconvenienced your agenda, yes,
I know my body inconvenienced my gender,
there was never a chance for me to be a Good Man,
there is still a chance for what I become to turn necrotic, yes,
there is still time for me to be anything else, yes,
if the core of the tooth dies it will need to be removed, yes,
I death-drive my body into my own DMs, yes,
what I’m doing is necrosis,
I learned once that a heart can give-up,
it’s easy to be too sad to notice how dirty everything is, yes,
my tooth fractured in a trauma based injury, yes,
it takes time to know whether the inside of something is dying,
a trauma based injury is a good way to describe me,
a heart can stop beating if it becomes too sad, yes,
I know it takes practice, yes,







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Aeon Ginsberg (they/them) is a trans feminine agender writer and performer from Baltimore, MD. They are the author of two chapbooks, Until The Cows Come Home (Elation Press, 2016) and Loathe/Love/Lathe (Nostrovia! Press, 2017), as well as having work in a number of other publications. Aeon is a Taurus, a barista, a bartender, and a bitch.