I am shaken
by the familiar and turbulent racket
awakening in me,
Shaking dreams from my hair,
scrubbing them from my skin.
Stale, I stare
At the gentle curves and crevices of my nakedness
At every pimple, spot, and dot
Every freckle, mark, and scar.
Every imperfection
Every breathing piece of art.
But to the others, the oh-so perfect others,
who swarm with their so-called wisdom,
I’m just a pretender and
To survive, I conform.
I lay silent and adjusted,
But I am just too fucking loud.
I am the familiar and turbulent racket
A pretender with an eggshell mind,
Afraid of the limp and the cane
The deaf listening for love,
The trans without a dress,
The addict without a needle,
The sad without a blade,
We are all the pretenders, we are all
The turbulent racket.
