intentionally untitled

My gender is the number of times i've been raped

divided by the number of times i've tried to reclaim the body

i was born into minus the dreams i have had

where i was stardust or a tree or the rain or didn't exist at all.

i’m made of old nails and fluorescent light
like a fixture in an absurd film about a solipsist.

i’m some sort of houseplant,
or a loaf of bread.
Anything to get through the night.

i get these little waves of panic thinking about other people's cheekbones
and those angles you get when you suck your cheeks in
and the soft flesh right above my elbows that someone put there just to fuck with me.

My gender is concrete and steel,
right angles but god gave me oversized sweaters
because fuck all to shit this hourglass figure i am supposed to love.

My gender is shaving my head in the middle of the night

and bathing in glitter and high top sneakers

and bras with too many straps and also no underwear.

Never wear underwear if you want to feel like yourself.

Always wear underwear

it's another layer

another shield

always wear a switchblade

in your underwear.

No one who hasn’t had to kill themselves to grow into who they are

can speak to the outright liberation shame free fall terror of that chrysalis dissent

into the unknowing totally known before and after.

My body is a fuck that i still haven’t come to understand.

i wont come to understand.

You can’t make me come-

My gender is high waisted jeans and hating my ass half the time

loving it the rest and wondering where exactly my legs meet my waist and which parts

could just be retractable.

How can something so much a cage

be also the only place i know where freedom lives

because my arms are a lie

i only believe in shoulder blades.

The curve of my back is all i need when i have convinced myself that going suicidal

because there is no word for the kinds of angles i am made of is just not fucking worth it anymore.

The curve of my back is fine.

i like to wear lace

but i’d rather wear steel.

i will make you cry when i walk by

i make me cry a lot

Olivia Max Grace sometimes identifies as a genderqueer artist(?) and usually wears oversized sweaters. They like plants, really clean counters, and white sheets. Recently, they made the transcontinental journey from Washington, DC to Oakland, CA in search of more calm or more ocean. They spend most of their energy trying to fight racism, fascism, capitalism, the hetcispatriarchy, and especially the prison system. while they tell people that they paint late at night, lately, they’re probably reading Twitter.