child of adynaton

a conversion therapist told me i could be myself when hell freezes over         but exaggeration’s etymology is “elevation, exaltation”

                                                                    above

& i’m more than complacent with being                      reality

        if repetition is sacred

        then being told you can’t     

                                                                        appoints one as the patron

i am the unity                                                                 saint of Watch Me

son                                                                                                   daughter

of the moon                                                                                  of impossibility

    i feast on the unfeasible

practice the impractical

believe the unbelievable

and obtain the unattainable

                                                         i am a being inside

                                                   what is         of the question

                                                          out

i am a child of adynaton

watch as hyperbole stretches its overgrown arms to embrace me, to comfort me

as i’m reminded day in and out that it is no longer 2014. i was seventeen then,

the twenty-twenties hadn’t reared its ugly heads, gay marriage was just around

the corner, and kids like me could be themselves with the help of someone like

Dr. Rachel Levine. Before the government dead-named her recently, Dr. Levine

was 17th Assistant Secretary for Health, the first openly trans person to be con-

firmed by the Senate. Before that, she approved me for medical gender trans-

ition on a cloudy January day in PA. My life was more than overcast then, it

was a storm, a category five hurricane that sloshed me all over the country for

the last five years as anorexia flooded my psyche and drained body, a poor place-

bo to treat unchecked dysphoria. A psychiatrist at the third facility i’d been to since middle school recommended Dr. Levine because she was one of few doctors who

prescribed puberty blockers. It is no exaggeration to say that the only reason

some kids make it to adulthood is because they are able to transition as minors.

Give me a finch and i’ll make a crocodile                                     What i mean is

after years of therapy                       denials                                      and pain
before our country was drowned                                    in misinformation
i saw cows                                           the day i was finally allowed to be myself

                                               sing         

                               I’m not the first and I won’t be the last to be

 a fish climbing a tree or

the second Sunday of the week

                                                      a hen who grows teeth

                                sunflowers blooming from salt

                                        or sky-grazing swine

                        time counterclockwise  

                                        a fly swallowing iron                                        

a moon wrangled down for charcuterie

                                                cotton-dry rain &

                                ruby lightning & muted thunder

                                                i’m a layman walking on water

                                        i’m a rabbit growing antlers

                        i’m an hourglass that only pours up

                i’m a spirit who can’t stop running into walls

i’m the breath of paradox

my mother collected me from the hospital               my recovery packed in the trunk
but we didn’t drive straight to Dr. Levine’s office                   as we had time to kill      

we arrived first      at Hershey’s Chocolate World      to board the indoor dark ride        

i remember three animatronics of heifer sisters    Gabby, Harmony, and Olympia            

i remember their heads reaching over a barnyard door to belt about   tasting love

maybe this anecdote isn’t applicable to the aforementioned rhetorical device but

for this poem’s sake allow me to say i witnessed something   impossible that day

imagine the cows’ endoskeletons and polyurethane skin        were flesh and bone

imagine their plastic teeth were enamel with bits of cud between             imagine

            their mouths opening and the moos they uttered were utterly       understandable

it’s time to go back in possible        i hope the future won’t rhyme with history
that repeats a hatred            i hope i remain here with you as a child of adynaton