WEBVTT

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This next poem, and most of the
poems I'm going to be reading,

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are written for the
manuscript I just

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finished as part of my MFA.

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It's my thesis manuscript,
and hopefully, my second book.

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And then at the end,
I'll read two new poems

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that are kind of from
something I'm beginning

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to think about working on.

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This next poem is a sestina
from the current collection.

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It's blood that makes men hard.

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The question-- whose blood?--

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makes this a threat.

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Set the scene.

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First act, men cat call me
daily even behind a mask.

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I'm raw red meat.

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Something to soften,
beat until the blood

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throbs inside of them.

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No, I won't let
this be the answer.

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No man's lust is
dangerous enough

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to stitch a thread of
fear through my blood.

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It's comical, the way
that these men act.

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One messages me, says
he wants to beat,

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despite his profile
which reads: masc 4 masc.

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Gay men treat trans
girls no better

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than any common straggot.

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They all beatify us
until they don't.

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I'm always a saint or a threat.

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Always more fetish
than attraction.

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My body's edges bleed
like ink, like skin,

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bead work of rubies, dry blood,
a necklace of rusty pearls.

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The night masks a man who
follows me and J for blocks,

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shouts slurs we act
like we can't hear.

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The street is busy,
but no one helps.

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Every day is another threat.

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This violence comes
on cue, on beat.

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A man beats off to me,
tells me to slit my wrists,

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to drain my blood in
the bathroom sink.

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My beauty, a threat to the
sugar glass of his masculinity.

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Men like him, I know,
desire me in the dark.

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In public, react as if
their hunger doesn't exist.

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It's all an act.

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They play out beat
by beat by beating.

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I'd be lying if I
said no man ever

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battered out my blood to
prove himself razor straight.

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Tired masquerade that's
always threatening collapse.

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I won't act my part, won't
spill my blood for a poem.

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Beat.

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Tableau.

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Audiences, mascara, streaming.

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This is not a poem.

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It's a cut thread.

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Wow.

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