Originally published in Liminality, issue 6, December 2015.
On January 14, 2016 I started taking testosterone for gender transition purposes. I knew I wanted to capture the changing of my voice. Rather than just recording my name and a datestamp, I opted to regularly record the same poem. I chose the then-newly-published "If You Find Me Out", for its promise of bodily sublimation, liberation.
Today is the two-year anniversary of that date, and I've blended the audio tracks from every few weeks that first year, plus one made just today, into one file posted here.
Lift me in your arms, lightly
like a child, a seedling fey.
Carry your changeling under a wide sky
down to the waters,
and let them hold me.
Waves as my cradle
rock me singing,
swaying, coaxing songs
lapping at my buoyant body.
The current takes the husk away,
my little boat. It’s gone.
I give the sky my name,
and I come home.