What is a man? An upside-down triangle — hips to chest?
Monosyllabic monotones? Straight-leg pants? Broad arms, flat chest?
A Kipling Man — a humankind kind of man, growth and breadth.
The boy who becomes man can feel and know it in his chest.
I tape ace bandages around breasts, too tight, just right, cut
when I can’t breathe, breathe mostly easier with bound chest.
Had a secret bound package delivered to UPS,
prepaid with saved up cash, pick up my binder with tight chest.
Binders all the time, feels right, 24 hours ad nauseum,
24 hours add insomnia, and I still feel ache in chest.
My friend says “you’re like a Ken doll!” My mouth an open hole.
Her line hits my shadow limb, no air or feeling in my chest.
Happy in a mind vacuum of nonsensical selfhood,
step out and go from boy to girl by word or check to chest.
Though I always wanted to be Captain Kirk, a warm masc,
Kate B. says I’m the inverse, a fucked gender treasure chest.
Academics' circle jerks, liberal bubbles’ call out
culture, or protestants’ constructs: our roleplay dress up chests.
Hear Athens Boys Choir alone, then in a room of people.
We multiply like aphids, flutter green in fragile chests.
The sex is sensuous and malleable, no stasis holds,
just what you like and what I do, the flesh of our chests.
Gender trails us. Kay, with those games, names, wrappings, all the rest.
Call me when you can hear the small bug chirping inside your chest.
