E. M. Lark

homebound (a trans manifesto)

(tw: discussion of past suicide attempt)

it’s two am, and i am finally undressing from someone else’s skin.

it’s two am, and i swallow the sound of my laughter so i don’t wake my father. but i am still laughing, still dancing around my kitchen with a past-midnight meal and hope lighter than feathers. my hope, bloody-knuckled and determined as ever, crawls its way out of its grave once again. call me lazarus because i will never be kept down, not by the grace of any god but myself. (not even when i go for good. i will live on somewhere, in someone’s heart, wherever the last scraps of my legacy remain.)

it’s two am, and i am seeing myself for who i really am. i could get top surgery, and trace my fingertips across the scars that will heal over some day. i could get a hysterectomy, call it quits for real on a dream that was never mine. i could cut off all my hair, keep it long, change it every season; my body and my mercurial heart, i’ll do what i like. tongue-tied skeptics may wait at the door. staunch disbelievers will have no place in this holy space.

it’s two am, and i see myself in every story i’ve ever truly loved. no matter how they start, they will always chase after being more than the world gave them. gender doesn’t matter there, either – we’re all runaways. ambitious broken beginning again. they remind me of my friends, those i’ve kept and those i’ve lost, pursuing the truth at all and every cost.

it’s two am. and i know i have had to do this so many times. this, being the art of waking myself up again. it’s so easy to fall out and fall apart, reassemble myself in the wrong box. i try this many times. it never works. it’s been over four years since i backed away from that ledge, refusing to drown in the east river (and i will make it to that five year mark.) it’s been over four years since i retreated back into the girl i used to be, and started the whole cycle over. i think of her warmly, though not without guilt. she never asked for this. neither of us did. she knows she’s impermanent, and for once does not regret it. i have been here this whole time, waiting to come home to myself. and i don’t care how long it takes, i am coming home. a coward and a hero draw the same breath, vanish into thin air – and leave behind the traveler.

hang on tight, i am coming home.

it’s two pm. and i let laura jane grace sing me out:

“who’s gonna take you home tonight? /
who’s gonna take you home? /
does god bless your transsexual heart? /
true trans soul rebel”

“we are never going to be the same.
when one spills their guts
into Pandora’s hands
you know that the world is at its end
grab the closest hand you can
and hold on tight, love –
we are going to need it.”
(07.10.19)