You Win, a New Poem by Radiance Angelina Petro

You Win

By

Radiance Angelina Petro

 

 

OK.

Enough.

I give.

You win.

Go ahead fireflies,

Dazzle your way in.

My heart is helplessly open.

Take me.

Lift me into the tree tops.

Carry me to states

Of unbridled wonder

On your armor-covered wings.

I am yours.

Shine in me.

However fleeting,

However small your lights,

Illuminate

The shell of darkness

I am becoming.

I surrender.

Enough.

I give.

You win.

 

 


 

 

 


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Independence Day, 2016, by Radiance Angelina Petro

Independence Day, 2016

By

Radiance Angelina Petro

 

 

Fireflies riot in the trees,

I can’t distinguish them

From the moon-lit sequins

On my skirt as I stride

Through the damp grass

Into the night-draped yard.

 

Fireworks pop—dull, crisp—

Somewhere people on blankets

Look up, wondering how good

The finale will be (it is always so

Sudden—leaving the scent of sulphur

And wisps of smoke to dissolve

Very anti-climatically

Into the sky).

 

Fire consumes light for a living.

I long to turn and run

Through the black hole of my life,

And plunge head-first

Into the churning mouth

Of the sun.

 

 


 

 

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Alien, by Jennifer Angelina Petro

Alien

By

Jennifer Angelina Petro

 

 

I am not from around here.

I came from up there–the sky.

When I entered your gravitational pull

I vanished into a womb

And woke up one day

An intersexed jarble

Of cells and screams.

As I assembled over your earth years,

I tried to fit in to the norms and customs

Of this place, except my ways

Of being didn’t quite align with those

Of the people nearest me, so they tried

To chisel me down, hone

Me into something that better matched

Their perceptions of what they thought I should be.

Yes, I still possessed my super powers.

I could have melted them with my eyes,

I could have spoken the language

Of my cousins—the cicadas—and droned them

Into a pulp.   I could have also lifted into the night

Like an untethered star anytime

I wanted to.  But something

Kept me here, something kept me

From destroying everything in my path.

Something itched from the inside of my skin,

Something began erasing my memories

Of my other life one by one,

And it was increasingly delightful.

And even though I had morphed

Many times for the conveniences

Of space travel, this transformation

Was wholly unprecedented, and divine.

Over time, (which is what they call the experience

Of fear around here), it became apparent

That this inside being wasn’t

Inside at all—it was the whole shebang—

It was the totality of who I was,

And one day the pod cracked

And there I was, an alien unto everyone

Except myself–a sister from another planet.

And I still had my super powers.

I read minds and listened to hearts,

I learned when to hide,

I secretly saved lives in alleyways deep in the city,

Only to disappear into a puddle– lamp-lit with rain.

I could harness lightening and change entire days

Into moments of power and flame,

I could breathe finally in an atmosphere

I didn’t realize I had been suffocating in.

Now, the helmet’s gone, or at very least,

Unneeded. The space suit

I traveled in slowly disintegrates from view,

And I roam this terrestrial place

Hiding in plain sight, gradually forgetting

Where I came from,

Looking for instructions on how

To fit into this life so that ultimately,

I can remember the way home–

For now, there is no name for me,

There is no place for me to rest my head.

I am lost, found, dissolving, evolving,

And aching to be seen for who I really am—for who you really are—

For who we all are, so that one day,

When they come looking for me,

They won’t find me—and they will take you back with them instead

With the hopes of discovering why

So many wanted me gone.

 

 

 


 


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