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Assignments

Lisa Mann

Your assignment will demand
that you squeeze into
the costume selected for you
and they will call you
boy or girl.

Forget the two-spirit
sacred being.
Never mind
what the heart knows
or the mouth remembers.

They will assign
the ways you may express
your love.

You will not alter
the body you possess.
Forget the way the fabric felt
or the leather smelled —
your uniform must fit.

Pretend to be
who they say you are.
Swallow your misery.

And as you navigate
assignments,
with self-loathing,
self-destruction and grief
remember
what god they serve —

Their god
would extinguish
your very nature
to perpetuate a myth
that has no heart.

Their god prefers you fear
damnation
than manifest the destiny
within your soul.

Their mythology is all they have.
They are fragile
and weak; their own image,
uncertain.

Their god is the bully
of all gods.

AUTHOR BIO:: Raised by wolves in the Mojave desert, Lisa was released to civilization at an early age, where she discovered books of poetry by Anne Sexton, novels by Tom Robbins and characters like Bonanza Jellybean. Her poetry has been previously published in Jeopardy, a Western Washington University publication, Howl, and the Desert Writers Issue of The Sun Runner.

December 8, 2018 9:49 am

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